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BENJAMIx DISRAELI 




U^iiK *^'. ^C- 






BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

AN UNCONVENTIONAL 
BIOGRAPHY 



BY 

WILFRID MEYNELL 



WITH FOI^Y ILLUSTRATIONS, INCLUDING 
TWO PHOTOGRAVURE PLATES 




NEW YORK 

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 

MCMIII 






A^ 



^ 



n HE LrBhArt> Of 






^ S* 7- ^ <5 



COPTKIGHT, 1903, BT 

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 



Published November, 1903 



DEDICATION 



TO WILFRID SCAWEN BLUNT, 

OF CBABBET PARK, SUSSEX, 
AND SHEYKH OBEYD, CAIRO: 

COSMOPOLITAN 



Dear Blunt,— A dedication is an author* s per- 
quisite: more acceptable than even the check of his 
spendthrift publisher. For this uncovenanted page 
ceded to the scribbler is his to cede again; twice 
blessed is he to receive and to bestow. Shelley ^ with 
his nosegay to give, cried, "Oh, to whom?" But 
already his heart well knew the destination. I, for 
my part, with this bunch of Primroses to give, thrust 
it in quick fancy first toward this friendly hand, 
then toward that. Indeed, the formula of dedication 
seems ready made: "To the most severe of critics" 
{as she is in all that concerns Dizzy), ""but a Perfect 
Wife." And there are, as we know, names of other 
ladies that suffice of themselves to make a dull page 
shine. 

Yet among these I look in vain for a Dizzy r 



DEDICATION 

worshiper so devout as you: ungrateful they to 
their fastidious admirer; and failing in that ampler 
faculty of worship allowed them by our Seoc with 
a generosity suspiciously ungrudging. True, the 
townsman who brings to you his Primroses, risks 
bringing you those, staled, that were freshly gath- 
ered in your own Sussex copses; nor am I sanguine 
enough to hope, in placing your name on the fore- 
head of my book, that its pages will tell you of 
Disraeli aught that you do not already know, and 
that we have not dwelt upon together. 

But there are auguries, for all that, in favor of 
this conjunction of his name and yours. You, like 
him, have loved the Arab, man and horse; and it is 
my faith that had you lived of old in Egypt, you, 
vexing the souls of Pharaohs, would have solaced 
and shortened the captivity of the Children of Israel 
— Disraelis own fathers. "Egypt for the Egyp- 
tians" on your lips had then meant ''Let this people 
go!" And I recall the time when, even in our Island, 
and under Hanoverians, you, a Poet, pursued the 
fickle jade Politics, enamored of her in England, 
in Ireland, in Egypt; enduring sorrow for her sake, 
yet not living happily with her ever after. Disraeli, 
on the other hand, paramount in Parliament, was 
hooted from Parnassus. The pleasure of the antith- 
esis tempts me to make allusion to this one failure 
of his in a career that otherwise reconciles, over the 
range of romance, and to the very verge of miracle, 

vi 



DEDICATION 

faith with fulfilment^ purpose with achievement^ wish 
with accomplishment, dream with daily reality. 
Believe me,, dear Blunt, 

Ever devotedly yours in Dizzy, 

Wilfrid Meynell 

Palace Court House, W., 

September^ 1903. 



Vll 



PREFACE 



Disraeli the Man — Disraeli as son, brother, 
husband, friend — is the theme of this book. It is 
an informal study of Temperament; in its way, and 
in his own words, "A Psychological Romance." A 
record of his public acts — not here attempted, except 
so far as those acts illustrate his personality — would 
be nothing short of a History of the reign of Victoria. 
Our England was, indeed, his chess-board; and I take 
for granted in the reader, or dispense with it, an 
acquaintance with the progress and issue of the game, 
of the detailed moves of his pawns, his knights, his 
bishops, his Queen even. What I have striven to make 
evident is the motive that informed the hand — not the 
hand of an automaton. 

Of his multitude of speeches — (hardly one of them 
all but is redeemed from the dominant dulness of 
Hansard by some flash of individuality in phrase or 
thought) — I cite only those that help to elucidate his 
human story; and the same may be said of the million 
words he contributed to our Fiction with a Purpose. 
With that Purpose I am much concerned; hardly at 
all with the placing of Disraeli as a Man of Letters. 
Yon Angeli, when he painted the Minister, said he 

ix 



PREFACE 

never saw Ms face, he saw only a mask; and Millais, 
at the end, produced a corse. That seeming mask was 
indeed an honest face — that of an onlooker, so unper- 
turbed and so unimpassioned that he never made a 
grimace, and in public was seen by one long watcher 
to smile but twice. I fail if the reader does not in 
these pages make of that mask a familiar, most 
friendly, and true countenance; if that corse does not 
show animation. Yet the writer of the North on this 
Disraeli of the South must equally fail in his effect 
who, giving motive to the Sphinx, does not leave him 
a Sphinx still. The man of mystery, the man who 
thought, loved, suffered more than he said or wrote 
or looked, must still remain. If, as the poet dreams, 
a gem is hard and fixed in proportion to the rapidity 
of its "interparticled vibration," so, too, the immo- 
bility of Disraeli was the expression of a thousand 
activities only too quick, too varied, to be caught by 
the casual eye. 

The legend of Disraeli the Adventurer is here sub- 
mitted to that test before which legends in general 
lapse; and with the common result. The consistency, 
even the pertinacity, of his political aims can be 
traced, as a Gulf Stream, through changing tides of 
the nation's mutable politics, more definite, more 
cohesive than they, but of a different impulse, of a 
more tempered quality; not always understood even 
when appreciated and felt. Less of an Opportunist 
(which every English statesman, being the servant as 
well as the leader of public opinion, may honorably 



PREFACE 

be) than the many among his contemporaries, or than 
his great Antagonist most of all, Disraeli did not 
easily take the party label. Hence he had his early 
adventures at the polls. But the crude representa- 
tion that he was first a Radical and then a Tory to 
serve the day's purpose, and in defiance of his own 
fixed individuality — that rude legend, repeated to this 
very day in Memoirs that will carry, if uncorrected, 
false weight with posterity as the evidence of Dis- 
raeli's contemporaries — dies hard. Contributory an- 
ecdotage, such as that about an early and implicating 
membership of the Reform Club, has been traced to 
its sources; and the base smaller coinage in daily 
currency is here similarly nailed to the counter at 
which Disraeli long traded for the nation — with such 
excellent profits, whether in the case of Suez Canal 
shares, or a Piero della Francesca for the National 
Gallery. 

The volubility hitherto has been all on the side 
of Disraeli's less than friendly critics; and with the 
statement that he placed the Crucifixion in the reign 
of Augustus, we are asked to t6st his capacity as 
historian; and are told that he once thought the 
Andes the world's highest mountains — and that is his 
own highest measure in geography. If the task of 
freeing Disraeli from some of the myths that obscure 
his true story has fallen to one who is not a con- 
ventional member of a political party, the result, it 
is hoped, will not be less welcome to all "true blue" 
Dizzyites, "true blue" at least in the sense in which 

xi 



PREFACE 

R. L. Stevenson proclaimed himself a "true blne'^ 
Mereditliian. 

In Disraeli's case, emphatically, the style was the 
man. His own acts have a close relation to his own 
words; and, as he said, so he did, them. As far as 
may be, therefore, I have left him to tell his own tale. 
Lucky is the biographer for whom Disraeli's always 
self-revealing novels exist; and the classic Biography 
of Lord George Bentinck; and the Home Letters, 
shrewd as Walpole's, yet unlike his, since they are 
lighted and warmed at the constant fires of a son's 
and a brother's love. Accordingly, too, I have gath- 
ered together Disraeli's letters — some published al- 
ready in scattered papers and books, others here for 
the first time. To these are added the spoken word — 
Table^Talk^the Table of Grosvenor Gate and Down- 
ing Street, of Bradenham and Hughenden, and that of 
the Carlton Club smoking-room; even that Table of 
the House itself, which he once felt relieved to find 
safely separating him from certain gesticulating 
oratory Of the opposing Front Bench. 

The book then, in its plan, is something of a 
novelty; therefore, too, something of an experiment. 
It is a cross-breed — I would hope a serviceable one — 
between biography and autobiography. The text, as 
it were, is Disraeli's, and mine the commentary; yet 
in the commentary too shall be found enough of Dis- 
raeli to give th^ salt, and to atone for any apparent 
disprbportibh of space occupied by text and com- 
mentaryj page for ^ag6. The method adopted has at 

xii 



PREFACE 

least one large advantage. It imposes less strain on 
the reader than a more continuous and disquisitive 
narrative demands. Themes treated with brevity 
have at least brevity to commend them. They gain 
in point what they miss in amplification; moreover, 
the obvious fitness of the subdivisions — the rightness 
of the paragraph form for the matter under treat- 
ment^ — must, I think, preserve the friendly reader 
frotn any feeling that he is being fed upon hasty 
scraps, i 

; My thanks go to those whose friendly help has at 
times rendered simple for me an otherwise com- 
plicated task: to the Duke of Rutland, last left of 
the Young England leaders, for interesting facts 
about the birth of the party; to the Duke of Devon- 
shire, to Lady Betty Balfour, to Lord George Hamil- 
ton, and to Sir William Harcourt, for verifications 
which only they could furnish. For delightful remi- 
niscences of Disraeli, their guest, I thank Lady La- 
mington and Constance, Countess De la Warr — the 
bearer of a name long endeared to Disraeli. A daugh- 
ter of that House, who became, in succession, Lady 
Salisbury and Lady Derby, the step-mother of one of 
Disraeli's colleagues in the Cabinet and the wife of 
another, was his "admirable hostess" at Hatfield in 
1851 ; and, "quite a Sackville" in her "great simplicity," 
was his report of her. Still farther back, in 1843 Dis- 
raeli was interested to meet at Deepdene "a Young 
Oxonian, full of Young England," and Mr. John Eve- 
lyn of Wotton — for it was he — has favored me with 

xiii 



PREFACE 

his vivid memories of what occurred on that evening 
sixty years ago. To the Rev. James Weller and Lady 
Marion Weller, I am indebted for the intimate Dis- 
raeli letter addressed to Lady Marion's mother, the 
Marchioness of Ely. I thank others among Disraeli's 
favored correspondents, including Lady Dorothy Ne- 
vill; and, as her husband's representative, Edith, 
Countess of Lytton. To others, indeed, I count my- 
self a heavy debtor; to Mr. Roger Ingpen, to Mr. 
Henniker Heaton, M.P., and to Mr. S. T. Meynell, 
among the rest. Not one of these has, however, a 
shred of responsibility for the contents of this book; 
least of all for any passages of it in which their own 
names occur. 

To the former biographers of Disraeli the author 
has elsewhere made acknowledgments; and it remains 
for him now to give his thanks to the firms of pub- 
lishers to whom he has found himself especially, even 
if not formally, indebted — particularly Mr. John Mur- 
ray, Messrs. Longmans & Co., and Messrs. Constable 
& Co., names that are closely associated, in one way 
and another, with Disraeli's own. 



XIV 



CHRONOLOGY OF DISRAELI'S LIFE 



December 21, 1804. Born in London; son of Isaac D'Israeli, 

author of " Curiosities of Literature " and other books. 
1826. Pubhshed "Vivian Grey," a novel. 

1830. Pubhshed "The Young Duke/' a novel. 

1831. Having begun his career as a Radical, he became a candi- 

date for Parliament, but was defeated. 

1832. Published " Contarini Fleming," a novel. 

1835. Having become a Tory, he was rejected as a candidate for 

Parliament from Taunton. 

1836. Published "Henrietta Temple," a novel. 

1837. Elected a member of Parliament from Maidstone. His first 

speech in Parliament having been received with derision, 
he closed abruptly by saying, " I shall sit down now, but 
the time is coming when you will hear me." 

1839- Married the widow of Wyndham Lewis. 

1842. Became the leader of the " Young England " Party, opposing 
Sir Robert Peel and the repeal of the Corn Laws. 

1844. Published " Coningsby," a novel. 

1 846. Elected to Parliament from Buckinghamshire, which he con- 
tinued to represent for many years. 

1848. On the death of Lord George Bentinck became leader of 
the Protectionist Party in the House of Commons. 

1852. Became Chancellor of the Exchequer in the Conservative 

Ministry of Lord Derby, holding the place for nine 
months. 

1853. Resumed his place as leader of the Opposition in the 

House of Commons. 
1858. Appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer in the new Con- 
servative Derby-Disraeli Ministry. 
1 XV 



CHRONOLOGY OF DISRAELI'S LIFE 

1859. Introduced a bill for Parliamentary Reform^ which the 
House of Commons rejected. He then resigned. 

1 866. The Electoral Reform Bill of Lord John Russell and Glad- 

stone^ which Mr. Disraeli had bitterly opposed, having 
been defeated, the Liberal Ministers resigned, and the 
Conservatives formed a new cabinet in which Disraeli 
was Chancellor of the Exchequer. He also became 
leader of the House of Commons, and, except Lord 
Derby, the Prime Minister, rose to the most conspicuous 
place in the Ministry. 

1867. Became the principal author and manager of the New Reform 

Bill, which extended the rights of suffrage to every 
householder in a borough. The bill became a law in this 
year and enfranchised nearly a million persons, mostly 
working men. 

1868- Lord Derby having resigned as Prime Minister, Disraeli 
succeeded him in that office. He opposed Gladstone's 
resolutions for the disestablishment of the Irish (Episco- 
pal) Church, but the resolutions were adopted by a ma- 
jority of 64. Although thus defeated, he decided not to 
resign until after the general elections had been held, 
some months later. In those elections the Liberal Party 
secured a large majority and Disraeli resigned, Glad- 
stone becoming Prime Minister. 

1870. Published "Lothair," a novel. 

1873. Chosen Lord Rector of the University of Glasgow. 

1874. Chosen Prime Minister again. He held the office until 

1880. Among the incidents of his Ministry were the 
creation of the title "Empress of India " for the Queen, 
the establishment of a "scientific frontier" between 
Afghanistan and Central Asia, the acquisition of Cyprus, 
the subjugation of the Zulus, and the " Peace with 
Honor " results of the Russo-Turkish war as determined 
at Berlin. 

1880. Published "Endymion," a novel. 

1881. Died in London, April 19. 



XVI 



CONTENTS 



BOOK I 

HIS TALK FROM YOUTH TO OLD AGE 

PAGE 

Of his Birthplace 3 

Of his School Days 4 

Of Dinners 17 

Of his Youth 23 

Of " CoNTARiNi Fleming " ,25 

Of his Name 32 

Of his Maiden Speech .35 

Of his Married Life 50 

Of Chartism 62 

Of his " Splendid Failure " . 65 

Of Sport and Politics 77 

Of Robes of Office 86 

Of " Peace with Honor " 107 

Of Men and Books . , 119 

Op Hughenden Church 129 

Of Gladstone 146 

Of his Amusements , . . . . 151 

Of his Last Days 157 



BOOK II 

HIS LETTERS, BOOKS, AND PUBLIC LIFE 

Early Travels and III Health 175 

Sarah Disraeli, his Sister 184 

Bulwer-Lytton as his Best Friend . . ; . . ■ . . 187 

xyii 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 

Clubs and Clubs . . 199 

Daniel O'Connell 204 

The Home of his Youth 250 

Lady Blessington 252 

A Quarrel with his Uncle . . , . o , . . . 264 

Law-makers and Law-breakers 266 

Disraeli as a Debtor . . . . 289 

Affairs with Sir Robert Peel . . 294 

"Sybil" , 348 

One of his Best Friends 381 

A Man of Devon 392 

The Woman of the " The Lady of Shalott " 402 

Lives of him " Infamous Libels " 416 

Tennyson 425 

Carlyle 435 

Berespord Hope . . . , 443 

Minister and Cardinal 455 — ■ 

" A Broken Spirit " 461 

Gladstone 463 

Isaac D'Israeli 470 

" I Love the Queen " . . . ' 488 

The Queen's Favorite Minister • . . . 498 — 

Index 515 



XVlll 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 



FACING 
PAGE 



Portrait of Benjamin Disraeli . 

After the painting by Sir Francis Grant. 

Birthplace of Benjamin Disraeli 

No. 6 King^s Road, Gray's Inn, now 22 Theobalds Road, 

Disraeli's School-room at Dr. Cogan's 
Dr. Cogan's School at Walthamstow 

Where Disraeli was educated, 1817-1820. 

No. 6 Bloomsburt Square .... 

The residence of the Disraeli family, 1817-1829. 

Benjamin Disraeli 

From the portrait by D. Maclise, R. A., 1828. 

Benjamin Disraeli 

From the portrait by Count -D' Orsay, 18SU, 

The Author of " Vivian Grey " . 

By Daniel Maclise, R. A. 

Portrait of Benjamin Disraeli . 

Mart Anne Disraeli, Viscountess Beaconsfield 

From, the portrait at Hughenden Manor. 

Mary Anne Disraeli, Viscountess Beaconsfield 

From the portrait by A. E. Chalon, R. A., 18U0. 

Grosvenor Gate, now 29 Park Lane . 

Disraeli's town residence, 1839-1872. 

Benjamin Disraeli 

At the date of his first becoming Chancellor of the Exchequer. 

No. 10 Downing Street, Whitehall . 

Disraeli's official residence, 187U-18S0. 

The Prime Minister's Room, 10 Downing Street 

Showing Disraeli's desk and chair. 

The Church at Hughenden 

Showing the Disraeli vault, beneath the window on the right. 

No. 19 CuRZON Street, Mayfair . 

The hotise which was taken by Disraeli in 1880, and in which he d. 

xix 



Frontispiece 



. 13 ' 

. 20 

. 36 

34 

53 \ 
60 

63 

86 " 
94 - 
110 

128^ 
148 • 
153 



ed in 1881. 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 



FACING 
PAGE 



The Earl of Wilton shows Dizzy the Belvoir Hounds, 1869 . 156 ' 
The Earl of Beaconsfield, K.-G. 170 

Frovi a photograph taken in the 'seventies. 

The Disraeli Vault at Hughenden 330 "^ 

Showing the wreaths deposited there after the funeral of Lord Beaconsfield. 

Bradenham House, Bucks 336 

The residence of the Disraeli family, 1829-18U9. 

The Dining-room at Bradenham House 350 

The Yew-tree Walk, Bradenham 354 " 

A favorite walk of Disraeli's while writing "Sybil." 

Benjamin Disraeli 393 ^ 

From a photograph taken in the 'sixties. 

Lord Beaconsfield 306 A 

From a photograph taken in the 'seventies. i 

Lord Beaconsfield 318 ^ 

After the portrait by Sir J. E. Millais, Bart., R. A., in the possession of the 
Hon. W. F. Danvers Smith, M. P., the sittings for which were interrupted 
by Lord Beaconsfield' s last illness. 

The Monument in Westminster Abbey 333 

Designed by Sir Edgar Boehm, R. A. 

The Monument in the Guildhall 363 / 

Designed by Richard Belt, 1882. 

The Monument in Parliament Square 376 

Designed by M. Raggi. 

Lord Beaconsfield, 1879 404 " 

The statue by Lord Ronald Gower in the National Portrait Gallery. 

Lord Beaconsfield 416 ^ 

From a carved ivory cameo presented by Queen Victoria to her Lady of the 
Bedchamber, Jane, Marchioness of Ely. 

Lord Beaconsfield 433 

From (he bust by Sir Edgar Boehm at Windsor Castle. 

A Group at Hughenden 444 

Hughenden Manor, Bucks 458 

The residence of Disraeli, 1SU9-1S81. 

Disraeli's Writing-room at Hughenden ...... 466 -^ 

Showing family portraits over the mantel-piece. 

The Drawing-room at Hughenden Manor 473 

Isaac D'Israeli 478 

After a portrait by Drummond, 1798. 

XX 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

FACING 
PAGE 

Isaac D'Israeli 482 

Froin a drawing hy D. Maolise, It. A. 

Monument to Isaac D'Israeli 486 

Erected at Hughenden by Viscountess Beaconsfield, 

Memorial in Hughenden Church 510 

Erected to lier Favorite Minister hy Queen Victoria. 



FACSIMILES 

PAGE 

Letter to a Reviewer of " Sybil " 345 — 

Letter to Montagu Scott 39;^ (^ 

Letter to A. J. Beresford Hope facing 454 -^ 

Letter to the Marchioness of Ely 489 ^^ 



XXI 



BOOK I 
HIS TALK FROM YOUTH TO OLD AGE 



< 




BIRTHPLACE OF BENJAMIN DISRAELI. 
No. 6 King's Road, Gray's Inn, now 22 Theobalds Road, 



BOOK I 
HIS TALK FROM YOUTH TO OLD AGE 

Disraeli, asked by Lord Barrington where he was 
born, replied: "That is not generally known. I was 
His born in the Adelphi, and I may say in a 

birthplace. library. My father was not rich when he 
married. He took a suite of apartments in the 
Adelphi, and as he possessed a large collection of 
books, all the rooms were covered with them, includ- 
ing that in which I was born." 

Disraeli did not here speak as an eye- or ear-wit- 
ness. His birthplace was No. 6 King's Road, Gray's 
Inn, now 22 Theobald's Road. If Lord Barrington ac- 
curately caught his words (where a slight confusion 
might easily occur between the Adelphi and King's 
Road, the Disraelis having removed from one to the 
other just before Benjamin's birth), then Disraeli him- 
self shared what is now known without any doubt to 
be a popular delusion about his birthplace. This un- 
lucky trip of Talk comes pat at the outset of these Dis- 
raeli sayings, if only to illustrate warningly the du- 
biety always attending the heard and the recollected 
word, where ear and memory are constantly detected 
traitors, with no ill intent. "Born in a library" had 
left mere topography out of court; and would, stand- 
ing alone, illustrate a particular Disraelian quality 
of speech by which the narrowing of a phrase or 

3 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

boundary — here from a district to a room — actually 
expands it into something elemental and universal. 
When, for another example, he places the announcing 
of her accession to Queen Victoria "in a palace in a 
garden," he transforms a tiny spot into something 
larger than Kensington or than London, giving it a 
more generous dimension, and charging it with world- 
wide and all-time romance. Disraeli, above all others, 
had the trick of this veritable multum in parvo of 
speech. 

"I can wait." To Edward Jones, a schoolfellow of 
Disraeli's at Mr. Potticary's school at Blackheath, he 
Schools and addressed in boyish good-nature these 
schoolfellows, -^ords — words which his life for some 
years yet was to illustrate. Jones and Disraeli had 
been friends at home. Jones's father, a surgeon, had 
attended Mrs. Isaac Disraeli in the time of her trouble 
when Sara was born; and, later, a consultation, this 
time about schools, and with Disraeli the Elder as 
prescriber, resulted in the Jones boy's going to the 
Blackheath academy where Ben, aged still under ten, 
was already numbered among the pupils. An elder 
boy, still too young to have graduated in the school 
of patience, does not always welcome the advent of a 
junior who is a family acquaintance; but Mr. Potti- 
cary's new pupil was in fortune. So he thought then; 
and still thought with gratitude long years after- 
ward. Grown old in the ministry of the Church of 
England, he looked back three-quarters of a century 
and wrote: "When my father took me to school, he 

4 



SCHOOLS AND SCHOOLFELLOWS 

handed me over to Ben, as he always called him. I 
I looked up to him as a big boy, and very kind he was 
to me, making me sit next to him in play-hours, and 
amusing me with stories of robbers and caves, illus- 
trating them with rough pencil-sketches. He was a 
very rapid reader, was fond of romances, and would 
often let me sit by him and read the same book, good- 
naturedly waiting before turning a leaf till he knew 
I had reached the bottom of the page." "I can wait," 
said the boy Disraeli, to whom "all things" came, that 
the proverb might be fulfilled. 

All the same, both here at Blackheath and, later, 
at Dr. Cogan's school at Walthamstow, Disraeli, 
though he waited, burned. We get at his mood by the 
description of school life he gave later in his novels; 
and it is precisely because he has invested these men 
in miniature with the passions and the pangs of adults 
that many schoolboys of ardent disposition will recog- 
nize in him their truest historian — boys like Heine 
who, at sight of a certain girl, fell into a swoon; or 
like Byron, who loved so consumedly at eight that he 
doubted (as we, too, may) whether he was ever really 
in love again. 

"We are too apt to believe that the character of a 
boy is easily read," wrote Disraeli, who did not forget, 
as most men do, their own boyish mysteriousness. 
"'Tis a mystery the most profound. Mark what 
blunders parents constantly make as to the nature of 
their own offspring, bred, too, under their eyes and 
displaying every hour their characteristics. The 
schoolboy, above all others, is not the simple being the 

5 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

world imagines. In that young bosom are often stir- 
ring passions as strong as our own, desires not less 
violent, a volition not less supreme. In that young 
bosom what burning love, what intense ambition, 
what avarice, what lust of power; envy that fiends 
might emulate, hate that man might fear." 

He might have added the word "cruelty" had he 
been condemned to a public school, Jew as he was by 
birth, and sensitive to all that affected his race. His 
father's proposal of Eton for him was vetoed by his 
mother, who thought of it, not very extravagantly, as 
a place where her Ben would be burned. As it was, he 
found in his very first school, emotional as the trial of 
his strength must have been to him, a field for his own 
powers of dominance. 

"The hour came," says Contarini Fleming, who 
more than any of his characters personates Disraeli, 
"and I was placed in the heart of a little and busy 
world. For the first time in my life I was surrounded 
by struggling and excited beings. Joy, hope, sorrow, 
ambition, craft, courage, wit, dulness, cowardice, 
beneficence, awkwardness, grace, avarice, generosity, 
wealth, poverty, beauty, hideousness, tyranny, suffer- 
ing, hypocrisy, truth, love, hatred, energy, inertness; 
these were all there, and all sounded and acted and 
moved about me." 

Once again we note the absence of "cruelty" from 
the long inventory. Nor does the boy find the novelty 
anything but exciting and developing: 

"As I gazed, a new principle rose up in my breast, 
and I perceived only beings whom I was determined 

6 



SCHOOLS AND SCHOOLFELLOWS 

to control. They came up to me with a curious glance 
of half-suppressed glee, breathless and mocking. They 
asked me questions of gay nonsense with a serious 
voice and solemn look. I answered in their kind. Of 
a sudden I seemed endowed with new powers and 
blessed with the gift of tongues. I spoke to them with 
a levity w^hich was quite strange to me, a most un- 
natural ease. I even, in my turn, presented to them 
questions to which they found it difficult to respond. 
When they found that I was endowed with a pregnant 
and decided character, their eyes silently pronounced 
me a good fellow. My companions caught my unusual 
manner, they adopted my new phrases, they repeated 
my extraordinary apothegms." 

The child was here father indeed to the man; for 
these words, written five years before he entered 
Parliament, may well do double duty for schoolboy 
and for member of Parliament alike. If Waterloo 
was won on the playing-fields of Eton, Disraeli 
reached Westminster and the Cabinet by way of 
Blackheath and Walthamstow. 

"Everything," the prophetic tale proceeds, "was 
viewed and done according to the new tone I had in- 
troduced. A coterie of the congenial insensibly 
formed around me" — a Young England party betimes 
— "and my example gradually ruled the choice spirits 
of our world. I even mingled in their games, although 
I disliked the exertion, and in those in which the emu- 
lation was very strong I even excelled. It seemed 
that I was the soul of the school." 

The passage is suggestive. Had Disraeli gone to 

7 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

Eton, would he there, too, have controlled his fellows 
as he did later his fellow-legislators — "just Eton boys 
grown heavy," Praed calls them? If, on the contrary, 
they had molded him, we should have lost Disraeli. 
A public school or a university has a level to which, 
if some rise, others descend; it may war against many 
a town and village provinciality only to impress on its 
subjects a provinciality of its own — and one of a de- 
pressingly monotonous brand. There can be no gen- 
eral rule; for while the (anti-Disraelian) Duke of 
Argyll might have had his talents ripened and his 
temper sweetened by contact with equals, mankind 
must rejoice that Disraeli developed aloof — like Mere- 
dith, Eossetti, and Kipling — who, in a crowd, had been 
worse than cabined, crippled even. 

Disraeli was at Potticary's school at Blackheath 
between the years 1813 and 1817. From 1817 until 
1820 he was a parlor-boarder at the school kept at 
Walthamstow by the Eev. Dr. Cogan, a retired Uni- 
tarian minister, who earned some sequestered reputa- 
tion as a Greek scholar, and whose theological views 
may be taken as some index of Isaac Disraeli's own. 
Cogan complained that he could never get the Disraeli 
boy to understand the subjunctive; nor had he much 
patience with an "if" in after life. His schoolfellows 
were the children of prosperous parents, sufficiently 
undistinguished in a worldly sense to point the satiric 
allusion in The Young Duke to the very select school 
kept by "the Eev. Dr. Coronel," who was "so extremely 
exclusive in his system that it was reported he had 
once refused the son of an Irish peer." Disraeli's com- 

8 



SCHOOLS AND SCHOOLFELLOWS 

rades included E. J. Busk, who did well in later life at 
the Chancery Bar; Paget, the future Metropolitan 
Police magistrate; the sons of Baron Gurney, of whom 
more anon; Benjamin Travers (who kept him in coun- 
tenance with his "Christian" name); Gilbert Mac- 
murdo and Samuel Solly, F.R.S., known surgeons in 
their day; Sutton Sharpe, Q.C.; Samuel Sharpe, Egyp- 
tologist; and Daniel Sharpe, President of the Geo- 
logical Society and translator of the Zanthus inscrip- 
tions; while Richard and Henry Green, besides being 
shipbuilders at Blackwall, were, like so many of the 
later associates of Disraeli, philanthropists. All 
these Benjamins, Daniels, and Samuels notwithstand- 
ing, the school was not a Jewish one. At Disraeli's 
earlier school, at Blackheath, was a Jew called Ser- 
gius; and he and Disraeli (who was not then baptized) 
used to stand back when the other boys knelt down for 
prayer; a solitude of two again repeated when, once a 
week, a master attended to give the little Jews les- 
sons in Hebrew. How far he went in his Hebrew or in 
his Greek and Latin there is testimony at variance. 
The truth is that he continued the classics with a 
tutor after he left Cogan's, and he loved them in later 
life. Though he refused to speak French at the Berlin 
Conference, he was familiar with French literature to 
the end of his days. 

"By your account I have not changed since I was 
seven or eight years old." This was Disraeli's dry 
comment on a remark made to him (in the House of 
Commons when he took his seat in 1837) by a fellow- 
member — Hawes. 

9 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

"Do you remember," Hawes asked, "my taking you 
from school with the Gurneys and giving you a dinner? 
You are not altered." 

The reply seems to indicate that Hawes's manner 
was not ingratiating — possibly it was too obviously 
meant to be so. If Disraeli was willing to suffer fools 
gladly, let them at least be fools on his own side of 
the House: Hawes was on the other. When, there- 
fore, Hawes, quite in part, said, "We are all waiting 
for you to lash us" Disraeli's comment was : "They may 
wait." If he did not hustle others — "/ can wait" — he 
himself was not to be hustled — ^'Tou can wait." 

As he became a parlor-boarder at Dr. Cogan's at 
the age of thirteen and stayed till he was sixteen, the 
figures ("seven or eight") flung at Hawes were — 
well, figures of speech. Some people we all know 
whom we, serious, refuse to treat seriously. We can 
not waste on them the accuracy they can neither hand 
on to others nor return to us in kind; we would not 
concede to them that it was cold though the mercury 
was at zero; we prefer to tell them nothing; but if they 
force our tongue, we tell them nonsense — all which 
prepares a nice confusion for the gatherer and re- 
porter of sayings credibly repeated from mouth to 
mouth. "Before you can understand Pitt, you must 
understand Shelburne," Disraeli once said; and before 
you can interpret the sayings of Disraeli you must in 
some instances have an acquaintance with the char- 
acter of those to whom they were spoken. 

One of these four Gurney schoolfellows became 
well known as Russell Gurney, Q.C., Recorder of the 

10 



SCHOOLS AND SCHOOLFELLOWS 

City of London, and framer of that Public Worship 
Kegulation Bill which Disraeli offended High Church- 
men by sedulously supporting. To his widow Bays- 
water is indebted for the House of Eest fronting the 
Park from the burying-ground that holds the tomb 
of Sterne. This lady, who lived always in a state of 
religious exaltation, had a dream when she lost her 
husband. A bunch of fragrant wallflowers was held 
out to her; and these had grown on the wall of Death 
dividing him from her — an allegory that gave her com- 
fort. The son of another of these Gurney schoolfel- 
lows was the Kev. Alfred Gurney, a man of deep relig- 
ious feeling and the author of hymns that reach the 
rare confines of Poetry. 

Other boys besides Jones were Disraeli's friends in 
the holidays. The house in Bloomsbury Square was 
the scene of many juvenile entertainments. Mr. 
William Archer Shee, son of Sir Martin, President of 
the Koyal Academy, has the clearest memory of these 
functions, of which no invitation card remains to-day. 
"When I was a little boy, up to the age of ten or 
eleven," he recalls, "it was a great source of delight 
to me to go, at each returning Christmas, to the 
Juvenile parties which Mrs. Disraeli gave, and I used 
to meet Benjamin on these occasions. He was then in 
his teens, and at an age when a young fellow of seven- 
teen or eighteen had little in common with a young- 
ster of my age. He took little notice of the small fry 
around him, but walked about and dawdled through 
the quadrilles, in tight pantaloons, with his hands in 
his pockets, looking very pale, bored, and dissatisfied, 

11 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

and evidently wishing that we were all in bed. He 
looked like Gulliver among the Liliputians, suffering 
from chronic dyspepsia." 

These characteristic impressions of a younger boy^ 
rather interpreted by the bias of after-life, may be 
supplemented by a few extracts from a letter ad- 
dressed to me at random, after reading a newspaper 
article, by a lady who knew the Disraelis in the 
Bloomsbury Square era: 

"In the year 1828, when I was seventeen years of 
age, I became personally acquainted with Maclise, not 
much my senior. My family was intimate with the Dis- 
raelis; and it was through them that we knew Maclise. 
They had told us of a young artist who had lately 
come from Ireland, and who drew charmingly. . . . 
You say, 'Lord Beaconsfield put all his hopes in sis- 
ters.' And no wonder, with such a sister as he had. 
My elder sisters were about the same age as Miss Dis- 
raeli, and they were intimate friends, and, as a little 
boy, Mr. Disraeli would ask me to dance with him at 
children's parties, which I much appreciated. There 
was no old gentleman out of my family that I liked 
so much as old Mr. Disraeli, because he talked so 
kindly to me; and his youngest son, who died early, I 
also liked. My father died an admiral; he had been 
twice first lieutenant to Captain (afterward Admiral) 
Burney, brother to Madame DArblay, whose friend- 
ship he retained; and it was there my family, perhaps, 
got into a literary set. . . . My sister used to tell 
an amusing story of Benjamin. She was dancing with 
him at his father's house, and the subject of their con- 

12 




No. 6 BLOOMSBURY SQUARE. 
The residence of the Disraeli family, 1817-1829. 



I 



CONVERSATION 

versation was the novel of Vivian Grey, the name of 
the author of which had been so carefully suppressed. 
He was very amusing on the subject, but made no 
revelation. The next day it came out in the papers 
that he was the author." 

"Oh, my dear fellow, I can not really: the power 

of repartee has deserted me," was Disraeli's response 

when Bulwer, the host at an evening 

Conversation. 

party in 1832, asked him to be presented 
to Mrs. Gore. 

Society, Disraeli thought, was nothing if not amus- 
ing; conversation must be communication; by all laws 
of exchange the guest should give as well as take.^ 
He could not satisfy, nor even gratify, his social in- 
stinct by pushing through heated rooms, looking the 
whole world in the face, yet owing every man and 
woman of his acquaintance a coinage of the tongue. 
Disraeli thought stupid people should stay mostly at 
homie, and keep weird relations about dull weather 
and duller doings — for weird relations. Bulwer knew 
his man; and the presentation to Mrs. Gore, the be- 
ginning of a kind acquaintance between author and 
author, duly took place, Mrs. Norton and "L. E. L." 
("the very personification of Brompton, pink satin 
dress and white satin shoes, red cheeks, snub nose, and 
hair a la Sappho") looking on. Mrs. Wyndham Lewis 
also was there, and put that good mark against him 

' Yet how little "give and take" the most favored society may yield can 
be gathered from the confession of Monckton-Milnes, Lord Houghton : "I go 
out as much as I want and see plenty of clever and agreeable people ; but 
somehow or other get very little good of them." 

13 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

as a "silent" man — which must have well compensated 
him for the temporary failure of his "power of rep- 
artee." 

"Disraeli," Sir William Fraser says, "was fond of 
inserting little metaphors in his conversation. Dur- 
ing the last time he was Prime Minister, while a con- 
ference of importance was sitting on the Continent I 
met him in Pall Mall close to the War Oflflce. It was 
a bitter cold day; he had a white silk pocket-handker- 
chief tied, not around his throat, but over his chin: he 
appeared to be in the last stage of exhaustion. He 
stopped me; and after a few good-natured words 
said: 'Has the dove left the ark?' 

"I thought for a moment that it was some allusion 
to the olive-branch of peace, and replied: 'If you da 
not know, nobody else can.' 

"He said then: 'It's a dreadful thing for the 
country.' 

' " 'Oh, you mean the floods. I beg your pardon.' 

"I felt that it was very kind of him to stop even 
for a minute on such a day; and said: 'We must not 
lose our Prime Minister.' 

"He said: 'Thank you for your kindness,' and 
walked on." 

"I do not care to be amused — I prefer to be in- 
terested." This was said by Disraeli to a friend and 
hostess who feared he had not been amused at her 
dinner-table. Lothair does the same tale repeat: 
"There are amusing people who do not interest, and 
interesting people who do not amuse," says Monsignor 
Catesby — the name by a betraying slip of the pen is. 

14 



CONVERSATION 

once written Capel. "What I like is an agreeable 
person." And Hugo Bohun adds: "My idea of an 
agreeable person is a person who agrees with me." 
"Well," said Miss Arundel, "as long as a person can 
talk agreeably I am satisfied. I think to talk well a 
rare gift — quite as rare as singing; and yet you expect 
every one to be able to talk, and very few to be able to 
sing." 

Disraeli's own early methods as a talker are not 
easily set out in a formula. He avoided platitudes 
in his own talk; and platitudes about talk in general 
do not touch him. The best description of him during 
his early period is the familiar one given by that naif 
American writer, Willis, whose initials, N. P., are not 
quite justly written Namby Pamby. 

"Disraeli," he. records after an evening at Gore 
House, when Disraeli was the author of Yivian Grey 
and in his thirties, "has one of the most remarkable 
faces I ever saw. He is lividly pale, and but for the 
energy of his action, and the strength of his lungs, 
would seem a victim to consumption. His eye is as 
black as Erebus, and has the most mocking and lying- 
in-wait sort of expression conceivable. His mouth is 
alive with a kind of working and impatient nervous- 
ness, and when he has burst forth, as he does con- 
stantly, with a particularly successful cataract of ex- 
pression, it assumes a curl of triumphant scorn that 
would be worthy of a Mephistopheles. His hair is as 
extraordinary as his taste in waistcoats. A thick 
heavy mass of jet-black ringlets falls over his left 
cheek alniost to his collarless stock, whilst on the 

15 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

right temple it is parted and put away with the 
smooth carefulness of a girl's. He talks like a 
race-horse approaching the winning-post, and the 
utmost energy of expression is flung out in every 
burst." 

The note of exaggeration is evident in the ''bursts" 
that manage to be "constant" and yet to burst; in the 
accent laid on Dizzy's partiality for gay waistcoats — 
a partiality common to a whole crowd of persons in 
^'the days of the dandies"; and perhaps also in the 
vigor attributed to the delivery of Disraeli, which, if 
fluent, was usually deliberate. His talk came in a full 
stream, especially in those early days, when the talk- 
ing mood was on him. But then, as ever, it needed the 
mood. Madden says of this same Gore House period 
that Disraeli, "when duly excited," possessed a "com- 
mand of language truly wonderful," and a "power of 
sarcasm unsurpassed." These phrases he follows by 
allusions to the "readiness of his wit, the quickness of 
his perception, the grasp of mind that enabled him to 
seize on all points of any subject under discussion." 
When, a little later, Henry Crabb Robinson met Dis- 
raeli, he thought his talk memorable. "Young Dis- 
raeli," the diarist records on this occasion, "talked 
with spirit of German literature." 

The sayings of Disraeli in this book are not set 
down as specimen epigrams. They are not always 
either amusing or in themselves interesting. They 
borrow their interest from the man who spoke them, 
and are, for the most part, mere bits of mosaic, 
nothing when detached, but necessary, each in its 

16 



OF DINNERS 

place, for the true lighting and shading of the like- 
ness. They are biographical fragments of the daily 
Disraeli. 

"I ask only good people to dine with me, because 
on all others a dinner is wasted." This, at his own 
table, to a lady who gave signals of dis- 
tress for further enlightenment. "Ah, 
but you would know that doctrine if you adored The 
Young Duke" — a novel for which, rather to the chagrin 
of the author, she had expressed her preference. 

The passage under allusion may very well be this: 
^'A good eater must be a good man; for a good eater 
must have a good digestion; and a good digestion de- 
pends upon a good conscience." Perhaps society's love 
for "good" people as guests has in this theory its 
edifying genesis; only the "goods" have got a little 
mixed. 

"To enjoy dinner even a hungry man should have 
silence, solitude, and a subdued light. The principal 
cause of the modern disorder of dyspepsia, prevalent 
among Englishmen, is their irrational habit of inter- 
fering with the process of digestion by torturing at- 
tempts at repartee, and by racking their brain at a 
moment when it should be calm, to remind themselves 
of some anecdote so appropriate that they have for- 
gotten it. It has been supposed that the presence of 
women at our banquets has occasioned this inoppor- 
tune desire to shine, and an argument has been 
founded on this circumstance in favor of their exclu- 
sion. Yet at men's dinners, where there is no excuse 
3 17 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

for anything of the kind, this fatal habit still prevails; 
and individuals are found who from soup to eoJBfee 
pour forth garrulous secret history with which every 
one is acquainted, and never say a single thing which 
is at once new and true." 

This was a favorite topic with Disraeli in his 
earlier life; and oral traditions are here collated with 
a familiar and corresponding written passage. 

Five months after his marriage he gave at 
Grosvenor Gate his "first male dinner-party," and it 
"went off capitally" — naturally enough, with Lynd- 
hurst, Strangford, Powerscourt, Ossulston, D'Orsay, 
Sir R. Grant, and Bulwer as guests, four of whom 
were exceptional talkers, while Disraeli, always a per- 
fect host, came to table with the zest of one new at the 
work. Disraeli loved these feasts. They were, more- 
over, in some sort preliminaries to those Parliamen- 
tary dinners that were — he knew it well — to come. 
Peel might turn a deaf ear to to-day's importunity; 
but the "sweets of office" were served up on that table 
at Grosvenor Gate all the same. Within a month of 
the date of this first male dinner-party he had bidden 
sixty members of Parliament to his board: forty came. 
He picked his men as the best; and only one out of 
every three could not or would not take his salt. How 
much he exerted himself during this table-land cam- 
paign may be judged by the fact that dull men bright- 
ened and pompous ones thawed — he had gaiety and 
nature enough for two. 

"The Duke of Bucks has dined with me," he writes 
in easy triumph to his Bucks home; "he was really 

18 



OF DINNERS 

quite gay, and seemed delighted with everything, 
which with him is very rare, as society bores him." 

A little later, in a contrary but more abiding mood, 
and when perhaps the strain and stimulus of the 
society of women had been mitigated for him, though 
never wholly remitted, Disraeli said, after a long Par- 
liamentary banquet: "There are many dismal things 
in middle life, and a dinner of only men is among 
them." His general attitude as a visitor to friends' 
houses may be focused in the following sentence oc- 
curring in a letter to his sister, February, 1834: 
"Henry Manners-Sutton, who had come over from 
Mistley Hall, asked me to return with him; but as 
Lady Manners was not there, I saw no fun, and re- 
fused." 

He who had written of London dinners as "empty, 
artificial nothings," as "dull farces," and had declared 
the usual company to be a "congeries of individuals 
without sympathy," took all trouble to avoid, in his 
own banquets, the ills which had vexed his spirit, all 
his life, in the banquets of others. A host can not al- 
ways count on the spirits of his guests, nor even on 
the triumphs of his cook; but Disraeli was able, after 
some of these attempts of his own, to reflect, with 
Coningsby: "A little dinner — not more than the Muses 
— with all the guests clever and some pretty, offers 
human life and human nature under very favorable 
circumstances." 

During his brief tenancy of 19 Curzon Street — a 
street close on that quarter of chefs whom he rather 
endearingly described in Tancred — Lord Beaconsfield 

19 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

gave only one dinner-party — Ms last. It was not of 
men only — it had the Season's beauty as well as its 
wit. The Duke and Dachess of Sutherland were 
there; Lord Granville (who was soon to pass upon 
the departed Lord Beaconsfield the best and truest 
appreciation, whether from political friend or foe) 
and Lady Granville; Lord and Lady Spencer (none 
of these on his own side of the House of Lords: 
"Turtle makes all men brothers," Disraeli once said); 
Lord and Lady Cadogan; Lord Bradford; Lady Ches- 
terfield; Georgiana Lady Dudley and Gladys Lady 
Lonsdale; Lord Barrington, his attached secretary, 
and Lady Barrington; Lord Granby, the son of the 
oldest surviving of his friends; Lord Leighton, whose 
guest he had recently been at the Royal Academy; and 
Mr. Alfred de Rothschild. 

That last name, the name less of an individual than 
of a family, almost of a race, can not be passed over 
by the Disraeli annalist with a bare mention. 

Though the Rothschilds were a Liberal family in 
the heyday of the great Disraeli-Gladstone rivalry, 
the personal intimacy between the Tory leader and 
these money kings of his own race was of long stand- 
ing. Seeing that Sidonia stood as a type of them in 
Coningsby, it is rather curious to note that Disraeli 
suspected an author whom he did not love — Thack- 
eray — of having an eye on them for "copy," The 
occasion was that of a banquet at Sir Anthony 
Rothschild's, given in honor of the wedding of a 
brother-in-law, Montefiore, with a daughter of Baron 
de Goldsmid. Dizzy did not go to it — he was a tied- 

20 





Phnt.Hjrapli hij ./. P. Starling, High Wijcotnhc. 

BENJAMIN DISRAELI. 
From the portrait by D. Maclise, R.A., 1S28. 



I 



OF DINNERS 

down politician in 1850 — but his wife did. "The 
Hebrew aristocracy," he reported at second hand, "as- 
sembled in great force and numbers, mitigated by the 
Dowager of Morley, Charles Villiers, Abel Smiths, and 
Thackeray. I think he will sketch them in the last 
number of Pendennis^ It was from the host of that 
banquet. Sir Anthony Rothschild, that the first Jew- 
ish baronetcy descended to his nephew, later Lord 
Rothschild. Round the Rothschilds, in effect, raged 
the storm of political controversy as to the granting 
of civic rights and social amenities to the Jews. No 
family were better able to stand for a cause or to con- 
ciliate opponents, nor, when the battle was won (Dis- 
raeli helping to win it), to bear themselves with better 
moderation in victory. These men, by large gener- 
osities, and by the leaven of art and literature they 
have brought into Lombard Street and Park Lane, 
have more than repaid the confidence reposed in them 
by the English Islander. Even the Duke of Cumber- 
land would say so, were he living still. Fifty years 
ago they had become socially a force that already 
made itself personally felt in any public measure 
affecting the status of their race: witness a light al- 
lusion made by Disraeli to John, seventh Duke of Rut- 
land, after a division in which he had gone into the 
anti-Semite lobby. "John Manners is a little awk- 
ward about the Rothschilds, as he had dined with 
them on the preceding Wednesday, and their salt 
sticks in his throat." Dinners still play their part in 
the national fortunes. In later years, the political 
as well as the personal ties between Disraeli and the 

21 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

Rothschilds were drawn closer. It was with their co- 
operation that he made his great political and com- 
mercial coup, the purchase of the Suez Canal shares; 
and when he had at last to relinquish 10 Down- 
ing Street to Mr. Gladstone, he had, as one of his 
friends put it, "no home in town except in the 
house of Mr. Alfred de Rothschild, who surround- 
ed him with everything that princely hospitality, 
tried, warm friendship, and cultivated taste could 
offer." 

Disraeli to Lord Malmesbury, who had just seen 
the Minister, seated at table at the Carlton with one 
of the Bores: "I am the most unlucky man. I came 
here to meet Colonel Taylor, and the waiter told me 
he was in this room; but Providence has cursed me 
with blindness; so, seeing a very big man, whom I 
took for Colonel Taylor, I rushed to him and fell into 
the arms of Robert Macaire, who insisted upon my 
dining with him, made me drink a bottle of cham- 
pagne, which poisons me, and ended by borrowing 
fifty pounds." 

To a hostess who apologized to him, late in life, 
for the presence of a talking-bore at a small dinner- 
party: "I have been really amused and rested." 

One such hostess writes: "Sometimes it occurred 
at a small dinner-party that some unimportant per- 
son, probably nervously anxious to appear at his best, 
soliloquized most of the evening. If the horror- 
stricken hostess murmured forth an excuse, Lord 
Beaconsfield would smile." 



22 



"MY MISERABLE YOUTH" 

To Lady Derby, as they approached Bradenham 
after a walk from Hughenden: "It was here that I 
*'My Miser- passed my miserable youth." Lady Derby 
able Youth." asking, "Why miserable?" Disraeli re- 
plied: "I was devoured by ambition I did not see any 
means of gratifying." This was a dark mood. In 
brighter memories there was, as of old, "no place like 
Bradenham." 

To Colonel Webster, who said to Disraeli in his 
later twenties, "Take care, my good fellow; I lost the 
most beautiful woman in the world by smoking: it 
has prevented more elopements than the dread of a 
duel or Doctors' Commons": 

"Then you prove that it is a very moral habit." 

Perhaps this ludicrous lament of the Colonel's, 
with a further (not very friendly) lead from allitera- 
tion, was responsible for Disraeli's awkward saying: 
^'Tobacco is the Tomb of Love." 

Disraeli was a great smoker in early life, begin- 
ning with his Eastern tour in 1830. "I have not only 
I)ecome a smoker, but the greatest smoker in Malta — 
I find it relieves my head," he said when he was in his 
twenty-sixth year. At Stamboul a few months later 
lie made the Imperial perfumer's shop his daily 
lounge and "never went to the Bazaar without smok- 
ing a pipe with him"; and from Cairo he reports: "I 
liave become a most accomplished smoker, carrying 
that luxurious art to a pitch of refinement of which 
Ralph has no idea. My pipe is cooled in a wet silken 
bag; my coffee is boiled with spices; and I finish 
my last chibouk with a sherbet of pomegranate." 

23 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

Some of these pipes, nine feet long, were sent home 
to Bradenham, and not merely as ornaments. "Tell 
Tita to get my pipes in order," Disraeli wrote home 
from town at the end of the summer season of 1834^ 
"as I look forward with great zest to a batch of 
smoking." Two years later, writing again from town, 
he says: "I shall enjoy the day when I may come and 
have a quiet smoke at Bradenham, first embracing 
you all before my lips are tainted with the fumes of 
Gibel." Nor did it all end in smoke; for during the 
first year of his Parliamentary life he said: " I ascribe 
my popularity in the House to the smoking-room." 
Tobacco is the salvation of the Treasury; and it seems 
to be fit enough that a cigar should be one of the 
wands to carry this magician thither. 

To a friend vexed by a rainy day: "There are twa 
powers at which men should never grumble — the 
Sun- weather and their wives." 

Worshiper. All the same, Disraeli was a very liter- 

al fine- weather friend, a lover of Phoebus. With Lady 
Mary Wortley Montagu he could say: "My spirits go 
in and out with the sun." "As my great friend the 
sun is becoming daily less powerful, I daily grow more 
dispirited," he tells Mrs. Austen during his trip 
abroad to recover health in 1830. Writing home from 
Granada during that same year, he rejoices: "You 
know how much better I am on a sunny day in Eng- 
land; well, I have had two months of sunny days in- 
finitely warmer." Again he reports progress, "so en- 
tirely does my frame sympathize with this expanding 

24 



"CONTARINI FLEMING" 

sun." Nor did he fear the August heat in Spain: "I 
dare say I am better — it is all the sun." And once 
more: "It is all the sun and the western breeze." 

Though Disraeli had abundant need for his philos- 
ophy in our abominable winter climate (praised occa- 
sionally by those who escape its rigors), he had at 
least a wife who, as the common saying goes, quite 
fitly to our theme, brought "sunshine to his home." 
And he took the weather without a grumble. His as- 
trakhan coat was his only demonstration against our 
Island's shrewd east winds and icier northern gales, 

"How delightful it is to have an empty head!" 
This must find a place among the many phrases that 
"Contarini clamor for a footnote; failing it, they go 
Fleming." to flood that well of falsehood at the bot- 
tom of which Truth welters. The "empty head" in 
which Disraeli rejoiced to his friends in 1832 was a 
head which had just delivered itself of England and 
France; or, A Cure for the Ministerial Gallomania ("a 
very John Bull book," he called it), and Contarini 
Fleming. 

This was the novel which cost him most pains to 
compose and some perturbation at its christening. 
Contarini Fleming: A PsycJiological AutoUographij, was- 
the label of the four volumes when first issued from 
Albemarle Street in 1832. Contarini Fleming; or, The 
Psychological Romance, was the variant title to be met 
with in advertisements before Contarini Fleming: A 
Psychological Romance became the final form. Milman^ 
who was Murray's reader, had, in the first instance^ 

25 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

o ejected to the use of the word Romance — "he says 
that nothing should disturb the reality of the impres- 
sion or make the common reader for a moment sup- 
pose that every word is not true." The first edition 
appeared anonymously. "Who is the author of that 
odd, queer, natural and unnatural book, Contarini 
Flemiiig?" Alan Cunningham asked of Mr. Dilke at the 
office of the Atlienwum. Disraeli made no Waverley 
mystery of the authorship: the book went from him 
to his friends and to other likely people, Beckford 
among the rest. "How wildly original! How full of 
intense thought! How awakening! How delight- 
ful!" These were the exclamations with which the 
author of Vathek began a letter that Disraeli rather 
tamely annotates as "very courteous." Tom Camp- 
bell, too, was "delighted with it," exclaiming: "I shall 
review it myself, and it shall be a psychological re- 
view"; and in three months more Disraeli reports: 
^'Co7itarini seems universally liked, but moves slowly. 
The stanchest admirer I have in London, and the 
most discerning appreciator of Contarini, is Madame 
D'Arblay." Perhaps, in letters home, Disraeli charac- 
teristically made the best of reports; for there seems 
to be a chastened note about the account he long after- 
ward gave of the incidents of Contarini's first appear- 
ing: 

"I had then" (in 1832) "returned from two years 
of travel in the Mediterranean regions, and I pub- 
lished Contarini Fleming anonymously and in the midst 
of a revolution. It was almost still-born; and, having 
written it with deep thought and feeling, I was nat- 

26 




From the portrait bj' Count D'Orsay, 1834. 



OF A RABBIT MOUTH 

urally discouraged from further effort. Yet the youth- 
ful writer who may, like me, be inclined to despair, 
may learn also from my example not to be precipitate 
in his resolves. Gradually Contarini Fleming found 
sympathizing readers; Goethe and Beckford were im- 
pelled to communicate their unsolicited opinions of 
this work to its anonymous author,^ and I have seen 
a criticism by Heine of which any writer might be 
justly proud. Yet all this does not prevent me from 
being conscious that it would have been better if a 
subject so essentially psychological had been treated 
at a. more mature period of life." 

Heine's opinion certainly comes well up to the ref- 
erence here made to it. "Modern English Letters," 
he says, "have given us no offspring equal to Contarini 
Fleming. Cast in our Teutonic mold, it is neverthe- 
less one of the most original works ever written: pro- 
found, poignant, pathetic; its subject the most inter- 
esting, if not the noblest, imaginable — the develop- 
ment of a poet; truly psychological; passion and 
mockery; Gothic richness, the fantasy of the Sara- 
cens, and yet over all a classic, even a death-like, re- 
pose." 

"There is one fatal defect in a woman — a rabbit 
mouth. In my young days it spoiled Lady Lincoln, 

' Disraeli, forty years later, seems to forget that he had so far " solicited " 
Beckford as to send him, or to cause the publishers to send him, a copy of the 
work : he remembered only the salient fact that he and Beckford were then 
strangers. They met for the first time (June, 1834) at the Opera ; and Beck- 
ford's praises then overflowed to Isaac Disraeli's Persian romance, Mejnoun 
nnd Leila. 

27 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

and the only pity is that Lord Orf ord did not think so."^ 
Lord Lincoln, afterward sixth Duke of Newcastle^ 
Of a Rabbit married in the year of Reform (1832) 
Mouth. Lady Susan Hamilton Douglas, only 

daughter of the tenth Duke of Hamilton, and grand- 
daughter of that great admirer of Contarini Fleming, 
Beckford, author of Yathek. Lady Lincoln valiantly 
bore her husband five children; then, in the August 
of 1848, she left him, on the plea of going abroad for 
her health. Soon her name was coupled with that 
of Lord Walpole, eldest son of the Earl of Orf ord; 
hence the abortive mission of Mr. Gladstone, the friend 
of both husband and wife, who found Lord Walpole 
and Lady Lincoln living near Como as Mr. and Mrs. 
Lawrence. Mrs. Lawrence was "not at home" to Mr. 
Gladstone, who returned to England having failed 
to take captivation captive. In 1849 she had a son, 
christened Horatio Walpole; and she did not oppose 
the Bill of Divorce which passed the House of Lords 
in 1850. Her husband. Secretary of State for War 
during the Crimean campaign, sought distraction in 
politics; but scarce found in public affairs compensa- 
tion for private sorrows. "I am no candidate for of- 
fice," he says in an unpublished letter, addressed from 
Clumber, October, 1856, to an intimate; "and will never 
again burden myself with its obloquies and ingrati- 
tudes and its sacrifices of health and time so valuable 
to my estates and my family" — the motherless chil- 
dren aforesaid. 

One recalls the advice given to another Duke of 
Newcastle in Pitt's time — "not to die for joy on the 

28 



AN UNLABELED POLITICIAN 

Monday nor for fear on the Tuesday"; and this Duke 
ceased in a brief while to be a pessimist. The allu- 
sion to "my estates and my family," perused a genera- 
tion later, is enough, however, to make a pessimist 
of Puck himself; for one of those sighed-over children, 
not born in love, brought the estates to ruin, and an- 
other died in shameful exile. 

Disraeli made the acquaintance of Lady Lincoln, 
then a young wife, in the summer season of 1833 at 
a party given by Madame de Montalembert; and, 
a year later, he renewed the acquaintance at a 
dinner-party. He thought her "brilliant," and was 
^'engrossed" by her — notwithstanding the "fatal de- 
fect." 

To Mr. Charles Gore, who in 1832 said that Lord 
John Russell asked after Disraeli's Parliamentary 
An Unlabeled prospects at Wycombc, before his first 
Politician. contest there as a ISTationalist, and 
^'fished" as to whether he would support the Grey 
Administration: "They have one claim on my support 
— they need it." 

So long as Disraeli, the Radical-Tory, or Liberal- 
Conservative, or — a designation he himself preferred- 
— the Nationalist, made common cause with Tories 
and Radicals against the Whigs, the anti- Whigs on 
both sides were very willing to affix to him their label. 
Lord Lyndhurst, knowing him well, his temperament, 
his tastes, his traditions, could never have feared that 
Lord Durham would really enrol him. At the same 
time he took care that, so soon as Disraeli should find 

29 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

out for himself that the farmers would not trust them- 
selves to a free-lance, a constituency should be found 
for him, if he would but don the uniform. After all, 
when you come to think of it, a man who rises by rule 
through the ranks gets at last the thing denied him in 
his apprenticeship; for the commander-in-chief be- 
comes a free-lance indeed, but a free-lance with a fol- 
lowing. 

Greville, in his Memoirs, makes this entry under 
date December 6, 1834: 

"The Chancellor [Lyndhurst] called on me yester- 
day about getting young Disraeli into Parliament 
[through the means of George Bentinck] for Lynn. 
I had told him that George wanted a good man to 
assist in turning out William Lennox, and he sug- 
gested the above-named gentleman, whom he called 
a friend of Chandos. His political principles must, 
however, be in abeyance, for he said that Durham was 
doing all he could to get him by the offer of a seat and 
so forth; if, therefore, he is undecided between Chan- 
dos and Durham, he must be a mighty impartial per- 
sonage. I don't think such a man will do, though just 
such a man as Lyndhurst would be connected with." 

Disraeli here seems to be twisted in order to make 
a lash for Lyndhurst's back. Greville's ignorance of 
Disraeli's attitude may be readily forgiven him; but 
not his innuendo against the Lord Chancellor, to whom 
Disraeli, with general assent, has ascribed not only 
"political courage, versatile ability, and ripe scholar- 
ship," but also "tenderness of disposition and sweet- 
ness of temper"; at once a man's man and a woman's. 

30 



THE NAME DISRAELI 

Let Greville go by with the comment of one who was 
shrewd without being shrill, a stoic but not a cynic, 
the twelfth Duke of Somerset: "The impression pro- 
duced by 0. Greville's Memoirs is that he was a sel- 
fish man who never ascribed a good motive to any 
one." 

"I want to be Prime Minister." This was the reply 
made in his early manhood, after his first defeat at 
Wycombe, to Lord Melbourne, who in a friendly way 
asked him what he wanted to be. The statesman's in- 
terest was a second-hand and perhaps a rather bored 
one. His dear friend Mrs. Norton had asked him to be 
of any use he could to the young aspirant, who here 
as elsewhere, and now as throughout life, saw the 
hand of a woman silently working the machine of 
State. The talk took place at Mrs. Norton's dinner- 
table; and the Home Secretary — as Melbourne then 
was — must have been startled out of indifference by 
the soaring reply. The office was one within his own 
range of ambition — but this alien's! Melbourne was 
soon, but not more surely than Disraeli later, to 
realize the dream. And he lived long enough to see 
Disraeli within reach of his goal; but hardly to fore- 
see that the young man who had gained Mrs. Norton's 
good-will would be the only minister to win from 
Queen Victoria, toward the close of her reign, a 
warmer personal attachment than that she had ac- 
corded to him at its beginning. 

"Oh, knock out the apostrophe; it looks so foreign. 
Write my name in one word — Disraeli." This was 

31 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

said by Disraeli, when he stood for Maidstone in 
1837, to Mr. Edward Pickford Hall, the editor of a 
The Name local paper, to whom the candidate dic- 
Disraeh. tated his first address. 

"Mr. Disraeli — I hope I pronounce his name right," 
said the proposer of Colonel Perronet Thompson, a 
few days later, on the hustings at Maidstone.^ "Colo- 
nel Perronet Thompson — I hope I pronounce his name 
aright," said Disraeli in his succeeding (in all ways 
succeeding) speech. Nor, for that matter, was the 
pronunciation of the name found in after years to be 
so fixed an affair: the Maidstone politician had per- 
haps more reason than he knew for his sally. The 
softened sound of Israel, incorporated into Disraeli, 
was heard — rarely; Disraeli was thumped forth rhym- 
ing, say, with the name of his one-time secretary, Daly. 
But many older-fashioned people made up for this 
quickening of sound by an undue elongation — Disra- 
ee-li; some of them unwittingly, some of them to un- 
derscore the alien. Speaker Peel, for instance, inher- 
ited the habit from his father; and, calling once on 
Mr. Coningsby Disra-ee-li, surprised Mr. Healy to his 
legs. The same sound and syllables must have been 
accorded by the writer of some doggerel, entitled "Mr. 
Gladstone's Soliloquy," published in a Yorkshire 
paper at the time of Lord Beaconsfield's death. One 
verse may be preserved, only in illustration: 

Full long I sulk'd, then got to my axe, 
My trusty axe I took to wielding freely ; 

1 Colonel Perronet Thompson (who sat for Hull and Bradford) died a 
General, and eighty-six years of age, in 1869, 

32 



AT WESTMINSTER 

And ever as my victim bit the dust, 
I only wished that it were Disraeli. 

The ambiguity had been felt from earliest years: 
at his first school, the wife of the master solved or 
evaded the difficulty by using "Is he really?" Apos- 
trophe or no apostrophe, the name could not be other 
than alien to English ears; and so long as he lived, 
Disraeli can not be said to have been entirely forgiven 
for it. The apostrophe was finally dropped by Ben- 
jamin in writing his father's name. It stands as Dis- 
raeli, not as D'Israeli, on the title-page of his edition 
of his father's works. The rule of uniformity thus 
established has been observed in these pages. 

To a friend who, walking with him from the Carl- 
ton to the House of Commons, turned to descend the 
At West- Duke of York's steps, Disraeli is reported 

minster. j.^ ^^^^ ^^j^. u^^^ j^^^ ^^^ ^j^^^^ ^^^y. j^^g 

SO d d dull." 

But who was the "friend"? The path of greater 
publicity is, on occasion, preferred for the hindrance 
it places in the way of tiresome talk. Dull walking 
and dull talking together tire beyond bearing — as chil- 
dren, sent out with preoccupied hirelings, early begin 
to know. Obviously, if Disraeli wished to avoid that 
dreary solitude of two, the road, not the companion, 
had, for politeness of speech, to bear the brunt and 

be d d. When he walked alone, the Park route 

vras the one most commonly taken. 

Disraeli must have found the walk "that way" from 
the House to Pall Mall anything but "dull" — very 
4 33 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

lively indeed, after the opening of her first Parliament 
by Queen Victoria. "From the Lords I escaped with 
Mahon," wrote Disraeli, "almost at the hazard of our 
lives, and we at length succeeded in gaining the Carl- 
ton, having several times been obliged to call on the 
police and the military to protect us as we attempted 
to break the line." 

When they reached the club, their hats were 
crushed, they were covered with mud, and in their 
ears echoed the ready epithet hurled at Disraeli by 
the jocular crowd, "Jim Crow": a palpable enough 
hit, we may suppose, to secure the repeating of it to 
Lady Mahon, whose praises of the sonnet Disraeli ad- 
dressed to her had not at the moment exhilarated her 
husband. Disraeli, let it be added, had a true affection 
for Lord Mahon, better known as Lord Stanhope, the 
biographer of Pitt; and his portrait was among those 
hung and prized to the very last at Hughenden. 

Dizzy, famous for his foppery, was nevertheless 
nearly kept away from the coronation of his Queen 
Victoria because he did not happen to possess the 
garb to go in. Only a few days before the crowning, 
he wrote in a private letter: "I must give up going 
to the Coronation, as we [Members of Parliament] 
go in state, and all hiust be in Court dresses or uni- 
forms. As I have withstood making a costume of this 
kind for other purposes, I will not make one now." 

With that deprivation in view the young member 
for Maidstone had recourse to philosophy — the wise 
cheat. "I console myself," he says, "with the convic- 
tion that to get up very early (eight o'clock), to sit 

34 




THE AUTHOR OF "VIVIAN GREY." 
By Daniel Maclise, R.A- 



THE MAIDEN SPEECH 

dressed like a flunky in the Abbey for seven or eight 
hours, and to listen to a sermon by the Bishop of Lon- 
don, can be no great enjoyment." 

Dizzy, indeed, got up much earlier than eight that 
Coronation morning. At half-past two he got a Court 
suit, and at once proceeded to try it on. His sudden 
change of plan was due to the friendly persuasions 
(and the friendly purse) of his brother Ralph. Once 
he had his Court dress, Dizzy did not recur to its like- 
ness to the livery of a flunky. On the contrary, it not 
only got him into the Abbey, but it gave him otherwise 
a specially personal gratiflcation: "It turned out that 
I have a very fine leg, which I never knew before." He 
finds that, like Sir Willoughby Patterne, "he has a 
leg." 

"Failure!" An overpowering, and therefore a sin- 
gle, emotion sometimes finds fittest expression in a 
The Maiden single word; and "Failure!" was Disraeli's 
Speech. after the famous breakdown of his maiden 

speech. Hardly a breakdown, however. Disraeli did 
not falter; others failed to listen. As we look at it 
now, the failure was not his, but theirs. 

None the less did its infiuence on Disraeli's career 
appear, for the moment of chagrin, to be disastrous. 
The new member was not as other new members. He 
was already a figure; he had written successful books 
of a youthful smartness that staid people always be- 
lieve to be most justly castigated; he was a fop, with 
a drawing-room reputation, and if he was this and no 
more — (they saw before them the alien figure, flashy 

35 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

in its accouterments according to their taste, but they 
could not measure his mind or judge his strength of 
purpose) — then most righteously was he humbled. 
Moreover, he came to Westminster with malice pre- 
pense, as it were; not impartially waiting for the op- 
portunities that might there offer themselves, but hot 
for the combat to which he had challenged O'Connell. 
It would seem, indeed, all things considered, that he 
courted opposition when, following O'Connell, he rose 
for the first time to take his part in debate. Before 
him, on the Treasury Bench, where he would one day 
sit supreme, he saw Lord John Russell, to whose lead- 
ership of the Whigs he had pointed in modern illus- 
tration of the ancient worship of an insect. Lord 
Palmerston, too, must have smiled at, and not on, the 
young member with so little of the Briton about him, 
who had written of Palmerston himself as the Lord 
Fanny of Foreign Politics. Joseph Hume — ready at 
any time to 

Take the sense 
Of the House on a saving of thirteen pence, 

had been probed by Disraeli's pen; and such personal 
friends as Bulwer and Buncombe were ranged among 
his political foes. Mr. O'Connor, facile princeps in a 
House of Commons sketch, reminds us that Graham 
and Macaulay were both out of the House on this 
memorable evening. Of these and their compeers he 
had said to his sister that he could "floor them all"; 
and now was the moment when he must make good 
his word. He had to keep faith with believing Braden- 
ham. That was the most anxious work of all — to jus- 

36 



THE MAIDEN SPEECH 

tify himself, and what his career had cost, in the sight 
of his family. And if, by all his dignities, he had to 
show the Reformers, who had sought him, that it 
would have been worth their while to win him, he had 
also — a nervous achievement for a nervous man — to 
honor the large drafts of confidence he had drawn 
upon his Tory friends. Chandos was there, his neigh- 
bor from County Bucks, the son of that Marquis of 
Carabas he had sketched in Vivian Grey, and his backer 
at the Carlton — the "friend of Chandos," Lyndhurst 
had said of him to Greville, when a seat had to be ob- 
tained quickly lest Lord Durham should step in first. 
All these things, and more than these, were acute- 
ly present to Disraeli when he rose to take part in an 
Irish debate so fiercely conducted that the Speaker 
had already once threatened to leave the Chair. And 
now, before the cheers of the members for Ireland and 
other friends had subsided with O'Connell's lofty fig- 
ure, the oration on which so much seemed then to de- 
pend had begun. The conduct of Sir Francis Burdett 
in subscribing to the Spottiswoode Fund for aid- 
ing Protestant candidates in Ireland in petitioning 
against any Catholic ones who might be elected was 
the subject of a motion by Mr. Smith O'Brien; and 
Disraeli, as we know, was allied with Burdett (even 
before Burdett sat on the Tory side) as an antagonist 
of O'Connell. The speaker's allusion to the "magnifi- 
cent mendicancy" of the Liberator invited the volleys 
that poured forth continuously from the Irish Bri- 
gade. They, who were many, matched their voices 
against his, which was single; and such a contest could 

37 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

have but one ending. Victory lay with the strong 
lungs of the Hibernians; and considering what the 
brute forces still are to which a nominally Christian 
civilization makes appeal, one really can not be 
squeamish with these Irishmen about their defensive 
weapons. 

"Honorable members . . ." he said, at the close 
of a constantly interrupted speech, which neverthe- 
less fills five and a half columns of Hansard. "I will 
submit. / would not act so toward any one — that is 
all I can say. Nothing is so easy as to laugh. I really 
wish to place before the House our position. When 
we remember that in spite of the support of the honor- 
able and learned member for Dublin and his well-dis- 
ciplined phalanx of patriots, and remember the ama- 
tory eclogue, the old loves and the new, that took 
place between the noble lord, the Tityrus of the Treas- 
ury Bench, and the learned Daphne of Liskeard, which 
appeared as a fresh instance of the amoris redintegratio; 
when we remember that the noble lord, secure on the 
pedestal of power, may wield in the one hand the keys 
of Peter and— no, Mr. Speaker, we see the philosoph- 
ical prejudices of man. I am not at all surprised, sir, 
at the reception I have received. I have begun several 
times many things, and I have always succeeded at 
last. Aye, sir, and though I sit down now, the time 
will come when you will hear me." 

A correspondent of the Times, "H. B. L.," writing 
at the time of Disraeli's death, says of his dehut in the 
House of Commons: 

"The validity of O'Connell's election for DuJblin 

38 



THE MAIDEN SPEECH 

having been contested, a subscription was set on foot 
for the purpose of defraying the expenses of getting 
him ousted. To this Sir Francis Burdett, recently 
converted to somewhat Conservative views, had large- 
ly contributed. It was proposed to place his name 
on the election committee; but O'Connell, having fair- 
ly enough demurred to the justice of a declared par- 
tizan being nominated to such an office, made a vigor- 
ous attack on him, and in the course of his speech gave 
him to understand that he considered him the 'great- 
est renegade in the house.' To this Sir Francis made 
answer that he could see no reason why, in the case 
of attempt being made to bring to justice some 'no- 
torious offender,' a magistrate who might be called 
on to assist in carrying out the law should be dis- 
qualified on account of any pecuniary aid he may have 
furnished for the purpose of forwarding so desirable 
an end. I need not say that the contest between these 
two Parliamentary combatants, each in a different 
way so cunning of fence, was a sight worth seeing. 
The speech which Mr. Disraeli rose to deliver on that 
occasion was, of course, elaborately prepared, per- 
haps too much so. I recollect it as containing, here 
and there, passages which could hardly fail to pro- 
voke a smile should the slightest nervousness arrest 
the power of unimpeded delivery. O'Connell evident- 
ly saw this. In an unlucky moment the speaker said 
something intimating that he (O'Connell), was a 
skulker, and afraid to look his antagonist in the face, 
or words to that effect, when up got the burly Libera- 
tor on his legs, and, advancing from his seat, stood 

39 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

bolt upright, looking hard at his opponent, with one 
hand in the breast of his waistcoat, his broad chest 
ostentatiously expanded, and his shrewd gray eyes 
gleaming with a sort of mirthful defiance. This com- 
pleted in a short time the discomfiture which the 
speaker's nervousness was already bringing on him, 
and he soon sat down, looking very pale, after having 
given utterance to the words so well known and so 
often referred to and quoted. By the bye, I think, 
but will not confidently aver, that the sentence in 
question was spoken thus, — The time will come when 
you shall hear me,' the word 'shall' being emphasized 
in a tone somewhat bordering on menace." * 

That was a bold front. Brave men do not sur- 
render needlessly; some brave men surrender never. 
"Now, if any one accuses me," cried Ottilia to Prince 
Otto, "I get up and give it them. Oh, I defend my- 
self. I wouldn't take a fault at another person's 
hands, no, not if I had it on my forehead." But in 
private, and we are still in private among attached 
friends, it is otherwise. Face to face with misfor- 
tune, the spirit flags; the unlistened-to orator, in the 
Division Lobby, murmured that word "Failure!" to 
Chandos, who came up to him with congratulations. 
"No such thing," replied the backer, from whom such 
comfort came with official as well as friendly force. 
"You are quite wrong. I have just seen Peel, and I 
said to him: 'Tell me exactly what you think of Dis- 
raeli.' Peel replied: 'Some of the party were dis- 
appointed and talk of failure. I say just the re- 
verse. He did all that he could under the circum- 

40 



THE MAIDEN SPEECH 

stances. I say anything but failure. He must make 
his way.' " 

A very different Parliament-man had formed the 
same opinion. This was Sheil, whom Bulwer found 
at the Athenaeum in the midst of — the words are Dis- 
raeli's — "a set of low Rads (we might guess them)^ 
abusing me and exulting in the discrimination of the 
House. Bulwer drew near, but stood apart. Suddenly 
Sheil threw down the paper, and said in his shrill 
voice: 'Now, gentlemen, I have heard all yotu have 
to say, and what is more, I heard this same speech of 
Mr. Disraeli; and I tell you this, that if ever the spirit 
of oratory was in a man, it is in that man; nothing 
can prevent him from being one of the first speakers 
in the House of Commons.' (Great confusion.) 'Ay I 
and I know something about that place, I think; and 
I tell you what besides, that if there had not been this 
interruption, Mr. Disraeli might have made a failure. 
I don't call this a failure, it is a crush. My debut 
was a failure, because I was heard; but my reception 
was supercilious, his malignant. A debut should be 
dull. The House will not allow a man to be a wit 
and an orator unless they have the credit of finding it 
out. There it is.' " 

At Bulwer's dinner-table a few days later, Sheil 
further unburdened himself to Disraeli, whom he met 
then for the first time : 

"If you had been listened to, what would have 
been the result? You would have made the best 
speech that you ever would have made. It would 
have been received frigidly, and you would have de- 

41 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

spaired of yourself. I did. As it is, you have shown 
to the House that you have a fine organ, that you have 
an unlimited command of language, that you have 
courage, temper, and readiness. Now get rid of your 
genius for a session. Speak often, for you must not 
show yourself cowed, but speak shortly. Be very 
quiet, try to be dull, only argue, and reason imper- 
fectly, for if you reason with precision, they will think 
you are trying to be witty. Astonish them by speak- 
ing on subjects of detail. Quote figures, dates, calcu- 
lations, and in a short time the House will sigh for 
the wit and eloquence which they all know are in you; 
they will encourage you to pour them forth, and 
then you will have the ear of the House and be a fa- 
vorite." 

Greatly comforted as he was by the report of 
Chandos, and already beginning to see that this 
catastrophe was of those which soften foes, waken 
sympathy in the indifferent, and conciliate rivals, Dis- 
raeli's thoughts now went to Hughenden, whither the 
papers would carry the news of his discomfiture. A 
few hours later found him writing to his sister, under 
date of December 8, 1837: 

"I made my maiden speech last night, rising very 
late after O'Connell, but at the request of my party, 
and with the full sanction of Sir Robert Peel. As I 
wish to give you an exact idea of what occurred, I 
state at once that my debut was a failure, so far that 
I could not succeed in gaining an opportunity of say- 
ing what I intended; but the failure was not occa- 
sioned* by my breaking down or any incompetency on 

42 



THE MAIDEN SPEECH 

my part, but from the physical powers of my adversa- 
ries. I can give you no idea how bitter, how factious, 
how unfair they were. It was like my first debut at 
Aylesbury, and perhaps in that sense may be auspi- 
cious of ultimate triumph in the same scene. I fought 
through all with undaunted pluck and unruffled tem- 
per, made occasionally good isolated hits when there 
was silence, and finished with spirit when I found a 
formal display was effectual. My party backed me 
well, and no one with more zeal and kindness than 
Peel, cheering me repeatedly, which is not his cus- 
tom. The uproar was all organized by the Rads and 
the Repealers. They formed a compact body near the 
Bar of the House and seemed determined to set me 
down, but that they did not do. I have given you a 
most impartial account, stated indeed against my- 
self." 

Then he tells the story of Chandos, certain to 
soothe, and he ends the letter "Yours, D., in very 
good spirits." The Times helped by referring to "Mr. 
Disraeli's eloquent speech," and if against this was 
to be set the Globe's "one of the most lamentable 
failures of late years," the Globe was an ancient 
enemy that had not forgotten its quarrel; while the 
Morning Chronicle's allusion to "a maiden but not 
very modest speech, which even his nearest friends 
will tell him was a ridiculous failure," lost half its 
sting in losing all its truth. Disraeli's own political 
account of the fiasco is only second in interest to his 
personal and domestic account of it, and this, by 
good luck, we get from a speech he made a week 

43 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

afterward at a dinner given him by his supporters 
in Maidstone: 

"The circumstances in which I addressed the 
Speaker were altogether unparalleled. I doubt if any- 
thing at all similar to them had ever before occurred. 
This fault only I find with myself. I was warned of 
the reception I should meet with, but this only in- 
duced me to meet it the sooner. It is part of my 
constitution to meet menacing danger as soon as pos- 
sible. (Cheers.) I have no idea of shirking a conflict 
which I know to be inevitable. Yet I had some con- 
fidence in the honor of gentlemen. I did not think 
the moment a new member rose there would be an or- 
ganized conspiracy to put him down by clamor. I 
have stood as often as most men of my age before 
assemblies of the people — adverse assemblies, unwill- 
ing audiences — but I always found that which is the 
boast of Britons — fair play. (Cheers.) I ever found 
that they recognized the justice of our national adage 
that ^fair play is a jewel,' and least of all did I expect 
that it would be denied by the gentlemen of England. 
But why do I style them ' gentlemen' of England? 
Oh, no: it was not by them that fair play was denied; 
for in an assembly crowded almost beyond parallel, 
in which nearly six hundred members were present, 
rising at midnight to address the House, I declare 
on the honor of a gentleman that a small band of 
thirty or forty produced all the uproar you have 
heard of. My voice had not been raised before the 
insulting jeer arose and the affected derision was ex- 
pressed by which they hoped to send me into my seat. 

44 



THE MAIDEN SPEECH 

But I tell you candidly my thoughts instantly revert- 
ed to you, my constituents. (Cheers.) Is this, I said 
to myself, the return for your generous confidence, 
that the moment I rise an infuriated, Jacobinical, and 
Papistical mob should raise their blatant voices? 
Shall I yield to them like a child or a poltroon, and re- 
sume my seat with pale face and chattering teeth? 
(Immense cheering.) No such thing, gentlemen. I 
determined to be on my legs exactly the period I in- 
tended my speech should occupy. I succeeded some- 
times in comparative calm; sometimes the cheering 
of friends joining with the yelling of the foe; some- 
times in a scene of tumult unspeakable. But I stood 
erect, and when I sat down I sent them my defiance. 
They thought to put me down, but they never shall 
put me down. (Immense cheering.) Yet, gentlemen, 
I would not have you suppose for a moment, when I 
speak thus, that I am deficient in respect for the 
House. No one feels more deeply than myself what is 
due to the House of Commons; no one will bend more 
readily to its opinion or the decision of the Speaker; 
no one will respect more than myself the wish of its 
smallest section. I would respect it because I feel 
the feelings of an individual ought not to be placed in 
competition with the public time and the public in- 
terests. But there are certain emergencies in which 
it becomes necessary to show that a man will not be 
crushed; and I felt that the circumstances under 
which so unmanly an attack was made upon me justi- 
fied me in retaining my position for upward of twen- 
ty minutes, not, I have reason to know, in opposition 

45 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

to the opinion of the Speaker — not, I have reason to 
know, in opposition to the feeling of the leading men 
of all parties. Therefore I could not justify myself 
in sitting down and acknowledging myself overawed 
by a small and contemptible mob. (Cheers.) For the 
House of Commons collectively I entertain unbound- 
ed respect, and I would bow submissively to the 
dictum of the Speaker or the vote of any considerable 
number of its members; but can I conceal from my- 
self, can any practical man conceal from himself, that 
there are many members in that House who are be- 
neath contempt; and, because a small herd of mem- 
bers, whom individually and collectively I despise, con- 
gregate like skulking cowards in the remote corners 
of the House to assail me with disgraceful uproar, was 
it for your representative, gentlemen, to fall down 
before them like a craven slave? (Cheers.) No, 
gentlemen; I expressed what I thought. I told them 
'the time would come when they would be obliged to 
listen to me,' and so long as I possess the confidence 
of my constituents, so long as I meet them with minds 
so firm and hearts so sound toward me, believe me, 
I will take care to reduce my promise to practise. 
I will speak, and they shall hear me. (Cheers.) 
They may have prevented me from making a 
good speech, but they could not deter me from mak- 
ing a good fight; and I trust I have not disappointed 
you. (No, no.)" 

Disraeli, in those early days, often loudly whistled 
to keep up his own courage. It is agreeable to close 
the record of that first speech with the reminiscence 

46 



THE MAIDEN SPEECH 

of one wlio listened from the opposite benches, and 
who was afterward to be a Foreign Secretary dogging 
the steps of Lord Beaconsfleld. The Mr. Leveson 
Gower of 1837 was the Lord Granville of 1881 when, 
looking back for more than forty years, he said in 
his panegyric — it can be called no less — of his dead 
opponent: 

"That Lord Beaconsfleld has played his part in 
English history, that he had rare and splendid gifts 
and great force of character, no one can deny. I doubt 
whether to many public men can the quality of genius 
be more fitly attributed. It was by his strong in- 
dividuality, unaided by adventitious circumstances, 
that he owed his great personal success. Assisted by 
those social circumstances that Mr. Disraeli was with- 
out, I came into the House of Commons at an early 
age, and six months before he took his seat in that 
assembly. I thus heard him make that speech, famous 
for its failure, a speech which, I am convinced, had 
it been made when he was better known to the House 
of Commons, would have been received with cheers 
and sympathy instead of with derisive laughter, but 
which, owing to the prejudices of his audience, he 
was obliged to close with a sentence which, like a 
somewhat similar ejaculation of Mr. Sheridan, showed 
the unconquerable confidence which strong men have 
in their own power." 

Whether the speech was good or bad, mattered 
nothing then to those who scoffed; matters nothing 
now. The speaker preserved his individuality — even 
his idiosyncrasy. He did not change his tongue; 

47 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

the House attuned its ear. He had escaped the 
mold and thumb-screw of public school, the uni- 
versity iron-maiden. Less malleable now, he passed 
the ordeal of Parliamentary life — Disraeli still; un- 
yielding to the Philistines. 

"But your friends will not allow me to finish my 
pictures." This was Disraeli's natural parry to the 
question put to him by Sir John Campbell, the Liberal 
Attorney-General, who came up to him in the Lobby, 
as a stranger, yet cordially, asking: "Now, Mr. Dis- 
raeli, could you just tell me how you finished one sen- 
tence in your speech — we are anxious to know: 'In 

one hand the keys of St. Peter and in the other '?" 

Disraeli good-naturedly completed the quotation — "in 
the other the cap of Liberty." The Attorney-General, 
having to say something, said "a good picture," 
whereupon Disraeli made his plaint about the inter- 
ference that prevented his completion of his picture. 
Then Sir John disowned the "party at the Bar, over 
whom we had no control," adding, "but you have 
nothing to be afraid of." 

Nor had he. "Nothing daunted" (his own phrase), 
he rose ten days later and spoke on Talfourd's 
Copyright Bill, as he says, "with complete success." 
Following Peel, he was received "with the utmost 
curiosity and attention." A general cheer, in which 
Lord John Russell joined, greeted the peroration: "It 
has been the boast of the Whig party, and a boast not 
without foundation, that in many brilliant periods of 
our literary annals, they have been the patrons of 
letters. As for myself, I trust that the age of literary 

48 



MARRIED LIFE 

patronage has passed, and it will be honorable to 
the present Government if, under its auspices, it be 
succeeded by that of legislative protection." Tal- 
fourd said he would avail himself of an "excellent 
suggestion" made (at Colburn's instance) by "the hon- 
orable member for Maidstone, himself one of the 
greatest ornaments of our modern literature," and 
Peel cheered loudly at that. "Everybody congratu- 
lated me:" Colonel Lygon saying, "Well, you have got 
in your saddle again, and now you may ride away," 
and Grenville Somerset declaring, "I never heard a 
few sentences so admirably delivered — you will allow 
me to say so, after having been twenty-five years in 
Parliament?" Even the meager report in the papers 
did nothing to disturb the equanimity of the neophyte 
who feared not to foretell : "It is my firm opinion that 
the next time I rise in the House, I shall sit down 
amid loud cheers, for I really think, on the whole, 
that the effect of my debut, and the circumstances 
that attended it, will ultimately be favorable to my 
career. The many articles that are daily written to an- 
nounce my failure only prove that I have not failed." 
Lastly, we bear in mind a verse which Randolph 
wrote to Ben Jonson when Ben's comedy The New 
Inn had been laughed off the stage. It was a verse 
already familiar to Victorian Ben; and one fancies 
him saying it to himself, for comfort, as he sat de- 
jectedly through the remainder of the debate that 
had brought him humiliation. 

Ben, do not leave the stage, 
Cause 'tis a loathsome age; 
5 49 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

For pride and impudence will grow too bold 

When they shall hear it told 
They frighted thee. Stand high as is thy cause ; 

Their hiss is thy applause. 

More just were thy disdain 

Had they approved thy vein. 
So thou for them, and they for thee, were born — 
They to incense, and thou as much to scorn. 

"I have no doubt about it." These were Disraeli's 
dry words spoken in the April of 1832, on first meet- 
ing the lively lady who, seven years later, 

Married Life. . . , . 

became his wife; words expressing his 
acquiescence in her flattering preference for "silent 
melancholy men." "Gifted with a volubility which I 
should think unequaled and of which I can convey 
no idea," was, furthermore, Disraeli's first impres- 
sion. The meeting took place at Bulwer's, and it was 
"by particular desire" that he was taken up to Mrs. 
Wyndham Lewis, a "pretty little woman, a flirt and 
a rattle" (he calls her), who became henceforth his 
frequent hostess and his fervent friend. No doubt 
it was through her good offices that he became her 
husband's colleague in the representation of Maid- 
stone. Wyndham Lewis died in 1838, leaving his 
"dear wife" a life interest in all his property — the 
house at Grosvenor Gate and some £4,000 a year. She 
was fifty, and Disraeli nearing thirty-five, when they 
were married in St. George's, Hanover Square, late 
in the August of 1839. 

Of this lucky lady's birth and upbringing some 
mystery has been made where none was. She was 
the only daughter of John Evans (not, as usually 

50 



MARRIED LIFE 

given, "Viney Evans"), Lieutenant (not "Captain" nor 
yet "Commander") in the Royal Navy. His parents 
were John Evans of Brampford Speke (not "Brance- 
ford Park"), an hour's walk out of Exeter, and 
Eleanor his wife, daughter of James Viney, Vicar of 
Bishopstrow, co. Wilts. The Vineys had been Lords 
of the Manor of Taynton; their tombs are to be 
seen in the Lady Chapel of Gloucester Cathedral; and 
their living name got a more than local fame with Mrs. 
Disraeli's uncle. General Sir James Viney, who left 
her a legacy of £2,000 when he died in 1841. Her only 
brother, Lieutenant-Colonel John Viney Evans, died 
July 2, 1839, eight weeks before she changed her 
name again, this time from Lewis to Disraeli. The 
man who was so near to being — what William Mere- 
dith, too, had nearly been, but none ever was — Dis- 
raeli's brother-in-law, lies in desolate Kensal Green, 
where his tombstone, as itself avows, was "raised to 
his memory by his affectionate sister, Mary Anne 
Lewis." Mrs. Disraeli's father had then long been 
dead. 

"One word of which you are ignorant, gratitude." 
This is Disraeli's reply, uniformly agreed upon as to 
its terms, made to a questioner (variously quoted 
and variously named) who spoke disrespectfully of 
Mrs. Disraeli to her husband. 

Sir William Gregory assigns the gaucherie to 
George Smythe, others attribute it to Mr. Bernal 
Osborne. Readers may decline on mere rumor to 
attribute a rudeness of the kind to anybody. But, 
for the present purpose, we take the story as Sir 

51 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

William Gregory tells it: "Disraeli looked him 
straight between the two eyes, and said: 'George, 
there is one word in the English language of which you 
are ignorant.' 'What is that?' asked Smythe, some- 
what taken aback. 'Gratitude, George,' said Dizzy." 

Of many other stories, told at Lady Beaconsfleld's 
expense, one need not here make a collection. Some 
of her alleged sayings in country-houses are accepted 
as trustworthy because told on the authority of "a 
son of the house." Sons of the houses will be grati- 
fied by this universal faith in their veracity. 

It is noteworthy that, while Lord Beaconsfleld's 
friends have mostly been silent about him, those who 
are other than his friends have published volubly at 
his expense. Sir William Gregory does indeed call 
himself his "friend." Sir William did not belong to 
the party which Lord Beaconsfield educated; and yet 
Lord Beaconsfield gave him his heart's desire — the 
Governorship of Ceylon. With his summing-up of 
Disraeli the politician as a "charlatan" we do not 
need to deal. But in private life those two men took 
salt together. Sir William, who says that at one 
period there was hardly a week in which he did not 
dine with the Beaconsfields, thus describes his host- 
ess: "She was a most repulsive woman, flat, angu- 
lar, underbred." Again, the guest takes us into a 
confldence: "It was ludicrous," says Sir William, "to 
see the tokens of affection and apparently of admira- 
tion which he lavished upon Marianne, as we irrev- 
erently called her. One evening, on coming up from 
dinner, he knelt before her, and, as they say in novels, 

52 




Sf^iA^^diUMr/iiyii ■/:yS'.-&ia^,: 



MAMIIED LIFE 

devoured both her hands with kisses, saying at the 
same time, in the most lackadaisical manner, 'Is there 
anything I can do for my dear little wife?' " At last 
Disraeli is some other than an onlooker; and in that 
scene the casual onlooker was evidently at a disad- 
vantage: even Disraeli's love-making was distasteful 
to a third person. So much one adventures in apol- 
ogy for Sir William Gregory. 

"We have been married thirty years; and she has 
never given me a dull moment." So said Disraeli to 
Lord Ronald Gower of the "perfect wife" as that per- 
fect wifehood drew near its destined close. All 
stories told of Lady Beaconsfield agree in one par- 
ticular — her devotion to her husband. A more useful 
daily quality than devotion even was her power to 
amuse him. That never failed. Once when Sir John 
Mowbray marveled at Disraeli's hasty dinners and 
hard attendances at the House, and said he did not 
know how the Minister was kept going, Lady Beacons- 
field replied: "Ah, but I always have supper for him 
when he comes home, and lights, lights, plenty of 
lights — Dizzy always likes light. And then he tells 
me all that has happened in the House, and then I 
clap him off to bed." 

Once, in her effort to amuse Disraeli, she made 
Sir William Harcourt blush. He was dining with the 
Disraelis and sat beside the hostess, who observed 
that he was looking at the picture of a lightly robed 
lady on the wall opposite, and said: "It oughtn't to 
be allowed in here; but it is nothing to the Venus that 
Dizzy has up in his bedroom." "That I can well be- 

53 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

lieve," replied he, with a gallant bow. Of course the 
story had to be told to Dizzy, who always delighted 
in Harcourt's wit; and, all the company hearing it, 
Harcourt perhaps had a bad half-minute. This was 
one of the rare occasions on which Disraeli smiled. 

"Man is a predatory animal. The worthiest ob- 
jects of his chase are women and power. After I 
married Mary Anne, I desisted from the one and de- 
voted my life to the pursuit of the other." This is one 
of the many sayings which are quoted to show that 
Disraeli was a cynic; but which, as we know from 
history, need mean no more than that it was a cynic 
to whom they were, partly in sympathy, partly in 
an understood jocosity, addressed. 

"She suffers so dreadfully at times." This also 
to Lord Ronald Gower, who adds: "It was quite 
touching to see his distress. His face, generally so 
emotionless, was filled with a look of suffering and 
wo that nothing but the sorrow of her he so truly 
loved could cause on that impassive countenance." 
Dizzyites, who acknowledged their debt to Lord Ron- 
ald's pen and chisel, must marvel that one who re- 
ceived this close confidence could afterward be 
jaunty at the expensb of the dead woman whom Dis- 
raeli "so truly loved.^^ 

To Lord Malmesbury, after the death of Lady 
Beaconsfield: "I hope some of my friends will take 
notice of me now. I feel as if I had no home. When 
I tell my coachman to drive 'Home,' I feel it is a 
mockery." 

This Disraeli said "with tears in his eyes," as Lord 

"54 



MARRIED LIFE 

Malmesbury told the House of Lords on the occasion 
of the Address to Her Majesty praying for a memorial 
to the Favorite Minister in Westminster Abbey. The 
humble phrase "take notice of me now" possibly cov- 
ered a refusal to go to Heron's Court, where, more 
than once, Disraeli had been the guest of Lord 
Malmesbury. Sincere as well as profuse hospitality 
had been extended to him in the past; and his re- 
fusals were far more frequent than his acceptances. 
Great houses, in town and country, from his early 
manhood had opened their doors to one who had made 
himself indispensable where he had not made himself 
loved. The Duchess of Rutland (who modestly omits 
from her list Belvoir itself) writes: "The halls of 
Mentmore, the sweet shades of Cliveden, the libraries 
of Knowsley, the galleries of Blenheim; Bretby, with 
all its associations of wit; Hatfield, combining the 
charms of past and present; Weston, with its glorious 
oaks; Knole, with its antique chambers, its eighty 
staircases; and Trentham, with its terraced gardens, 
among other places, were all homes where he was 
eagerly welcomed." 

Disraeli's own tributes to "the severest of critics 
but a perfect wife," to one whose "taste and judg- 
ment" (we are glad to set this testimony against a 
ream of anecdotage) "ever guided" the pages of Sybil; 
his avowal in Edinburgh: "I do owe to that lady all I 
think I have ever accomplished, because she has sup- 
ported me by her counsels and consoled me by the 
sweetness of her disposition;" — ^these are the records 
that will endure. 

55 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

To these may be given a postscript worthy of its 
place of honor — the tribute paid by Sir William Har- 
court to Lady Beaconsfleld in the Times the day after 
her death in December, 1872: 

"Thus closes, in the fulness of years, a life which 
has exerted no inconsiderable influence on English 
politics. She stands out a striking illustration of the 
power the most unobtrusive of women may exercise, 
while keeping herself strictly to a woman's sphere. 
Looking back on the long and tender relationship 
which has been dissolved in the course of nature, we 
are irresistibly reminded of the feelings expressed by 
Mahomed when the Prophet of the Faithful lost the 
loving woman he had married in the days of com- 
parative obscurity. 'By God,' he exclaimed in an out- 
burst of regretful gratitude, as he raised her solemn- 
ly to the rank of the four perfect women — 'by God 
there never was a better wife. She believed in me 
when men despised me. She relieved my wants when 
I was poor and persecuted by the world.' It was deep- 
seated, kindly sentiment of the sort which made Mr. 
Disraeli the devoted husband Lady Beaconsfleld found 
him, and once he vented it with equally honest ve- 
hemence in reproof of an indiscreet acquaintance who 
ventured indelicately on personal ground. His wife 
had come to his help when life had threatened to be 
too short to assure him the prospect he had dreamt 
of. At length he had taken his seat in Parliament. 
He came to it conscious of the possession of no ordi- 
nary political talents, and of the rarer gifts which 
should make a great party leader. He had always^ 

56 



MARRIED LIFE 

believed in himself and had never scrupled to pro- 
claim his faith ostentatiously. He knew himself to 
combine originality and versatility with absolute in- 
dependence of thought and a contemptuous indiffer- 
ence to party tradition. He had cast in his lot with 
the Conservatives, and those were the very qualities 
to enable a man to rally a beaten party upon new 
ground, and to fight a losing battle in face of the in- 
evitable Liberal advance. But time was everything 
to him, and the precious time was slipping away fast. 
As yet he sat almost alone; he had few friends and 
no intimates. Ancient as it was, his birth was against 
him — the country gentleman would have been slow 
to admit to companionship a lineal descendant even 
of the Maccabees, — so were his dress and demeanor,, 
the style of his speech, and even his somewhat eccen- 
tric literary reputation. More than that, he had al- 
ready failed in the House, to the disappointment of 
the political chief wlio had expected great things of 
him. He felt, in fact, that he was regarded askance 
as an unsuccessful adventurer. Had the leaders of 
his party been in the secret of his aspirations, they 
would have scoffed at them as the insane visions of 
an enthusiast. Believing in himself more firmly than 
ever, his strong common sense could only tend to dis- 
courage him on a nearer view of the difficulties before 
him. With time and patience he might win, no doubt; 
but who could say the time would be given him? Life 
is precarious, anxiety and disappointment tell terri- 
bly on a sanguine and farden nature. A little of the 
material prosperity that seemed the common lot of 

57 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

the luckier men around him would make all the dif- 
ference; for England then, more than now, insisted 
on a high property qualification as a material guar- 
antee for the virtue of her statesmen. When he might 
well have despaired had his nature been a despondent 
one, a fortunate marriage smoothed the path of his 
ambition. 

"It is no fault of ours if we have to write rather 
of the husband than the wife. From their wedding- 
day till now the existence of the one was merged in 
that of the other. It was their mutual happiness that 
the wife lived only in the husband; the husband's ex- 
traordinary career was the happy achievement of her 
life, and it was her pride to shine in the reflection of 
his fame. . . . 

"Mrs. Disraeli was many years ^ her second hus- 
band's senior (when she died she had reached the 
venerable age of eighty-three); on the other hand she 
had the money he desired for something better than 
sordid motives. But Mr. Disraeli was too shrewd a 
man to pay for name and power at the price of hap- 
piness. It is certain he chose wisely every way, and 
seldom has a marriage proved more of a love-match 
than his. We are glad to believe that the romance 
of real life often begins at the point where it invaria- 
bly ends in fiction. . . . How many husbands, 
far less engrossed abroad, have considered a tithe of 
the fame he won sufficient acquittal of so old a debt! 
How many content themselves with leaving their 
wives to enjoy prosperity in isolation! Mr. Disraeli 

* In plain figures, 15— she fifty, he thirty-five, when they married. 

58 



MARRIED LIFE 

did no such thing, although for that he would claim 
but little credit. The fact is his wife made his home 
a very happy one, and he turned to its peacefulness 
with intense relief in the midst of fierce political 
turmoil. We are apt to forget that most men lead a 
double life; that those of the strongest natures and 
the sharpest individuality show themselves in the 
most marked contrasts. It was a pretty sight, that of 
the remorseless Parliamentary gladiator, who neither 
gave quarter nor asked it, who fought with venomed 
weapons although he struck fair, and shot barbed 
darts which clung and rankled in the wounds — it was 
a pretty sight to see him in the soft sunshine of do- 
mestic life, anticipating the wishes of his wife with 
feminine tenderness of consideration, and receiving 
iier ministering with the evident enjoyment which is 
the most delicate flattery of all. The secret of the 
spell she held him by was a simple one. She loved him 
with her whole heart and soul, she believed in him 
above all men, and he appreciated at its real worth 
that single-minded, self-sacrificing devotion. It is 
difficult to overrate the strength and support given 
by unstinted love like that, and few, we suspect, ap- 
preciate it more than those who would seem to need 
it least. It is neither counsel nor sparkle, but ob- 
servant, ready sympathy that a man of energy and 
self-reliance longs for in moments of exhaustion and 
depression, and the more impassible the mask he 
wears the greater the relief of being able to drop it 
in private. Lady Beaconsfield was very far from being 
a reserved woman. She must have often talked too 

59 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

fast and freely for her husband's liking; occasionally 
the expressions of her artless admiration for him 
were caught up and colored, to be circulated as 'good 
stories' at dinner-tables; but the intuitive instinct of 
her affection set a seal on her lips in the minutest 
matters where her talk might do him an injury. She 
was very much in his confidence, and she was never 
known to betray it. Except for the subtle influences 
of the home she made him, the help she brought was 
passive rather than active from first to last. All he 
had asked was fair play for his talents at the start; 
her fortune had given him that, and he did the rest 
himself. 

"So, in after-years, while he led his party in the 
Lower House or served the State as Premier of 
England, she had neither social talents nor fascina- 
tion to place at his disposal. It was not in her to 
make his salons a center of society, to gather within 
the range of his influence eminent Englishmen and 
influential foreigners, or to sway by the reputation of 
brilliant reunions the easy opinions of liberal-minded 
politicians. She was no Lady Palmerston to act as 
her husband's most trusted ally, working for him in 
season and out of season with tact quickened by 
love. Her death will leave no gap behind her which 
bereaved society will find it hard to fill. But perhaps 
her husband will lose the more that society will lose 
the less. Her love for him was wonderful, 'passing 
the love of women.' It was shown in traits of un- 
obtrusive heroism worthy of the matrons of Repub- 
lican Rome. Few men can boast the courageous self- 

60 




Photograph by J. P. Starling, High Wycombe. 

MARY ANNE DISRAELI, VISCOUNTESS BEACONSFIELD. 
From the portrait at Hughenden Manor. 



TALK WITH THOMAS COOPER 

command which made her conceal, during a long drive 
to Westminster, the pain of a finger crushed in the 
carriage-door, lest she should agitate her husband on 
the eve of a great party debate. She knew a word 
could always bring her the sympathy. It was her 
sweetest consolation, but to the last her one thought 
was to spare him. Surprised by a sudden flow of blood 
from an incurable cancer, knowing that her doom 
was certain, and that their happy wedded life was fast 
drawing to its end, she had the touching resolution 
to preserve her secret; while, all the time knowing 
it as well as she, he never for a moment suffered her 
to guess his knowledge or gave her the grief of see- 
ing him suffer. It was the graceful symbol of the 
chivalrous devotion which had never wavered; it was 
an appropriate return for the inestimable services she 
had done him when, in November, 1868, he could offer 
her the peerage bestowed in acknowledgment of a dis- 
tinguished career. The loss of his companion has 
snapped the tender associations of a lifetime, and 
must have left a blank which nothing can entirely fill. 
The sympathy of the public can count for little when 
he misses that he has so long been used to. Yet to 
a veteran in public life there must be comfort in the 
thought that the public you have served is feeling 
with you; that England, irrespective of party, de- 
plores even the timely termination of an essentially 
English union." 

"I wish I had seen you before I finished my last 
novel: my heroine, Sybil, is a Chartist." .So said Dis- 

61 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

raeli to Thomas Cooper, Chartist. To know all the 

misery of the poor — and Disraeli had the energy to 

examine and the imagination to realize 

Talk with *= 

Thomas Coo- it — is surely to f orgive their rebellion 
per, Chartist, g^gg^j^g^ i\^q existing order — or disorder — 

of things; and Disraeli not only visited the scene of 
Chartist riots as a novelist note-taker, but proclaimed 
as a politician the gospel of amnesty when the case of 
the "rebel printers," Lovett and Collins, came before 
the House of Commons; and again declared himself, 
in the debate on a want of confidence in the Melbourne 
Administration in 1840: 

"I am not ashamed to say that I wish more sym- 
pathy had been shown on both sides toward the 
Chartists." ^ 

Later occurred this episode with Thomas Cooper, 
who had finished his Purgatory of Suicides in Stafford 
Jail, and came thence with his MS. (and his own at- 
tenuated frame) in the May of 1845. On reaching Lon- 
don, he called upon that excellent Tory-bred Radical, 
Thomas Slingsby Duncombe, in the Albany, Picca- 
dilly, and was there received with kindness. In the 
course of their talk, the "Prison Rhyme" was referred 
to, and the poet asked Tommy Duncombe for an in- 
troduction to a publisher. "A publisher! — why, I 

^ This was that famous speech in which Disraeli twitted Lord John Rus- 
sell, the Home Secretary, as one who could encourage sedition with one hand 
and shoot down the seditious with the other. " The Chartists would discover 
that in a country so aristocratic as England even treason, to be successful, 
must be patrician. Where Wat Tyler failed, Henry Bolingbroke changed a 
dynasty, and although Jack Straw was hanged a Lord John Straw might be- 
come a Secretary of State." 

62 





MARY ANNE DISRAELI, VISCOUNTESS BEACONSFIELD. 
From the portrait by A. E. Chalon, R. A., 1840. 



TALK WITH THOMAS COOPER 

have never published anything in my life. I knovs^ 
nothing of publishers, but I will write a note to Dis- 
raeli for you." The note ran: 

"My dear Disraeli, — I send you Mr. Cooper, a 
Chartist red-hot from Stafford Jail. But don't be 
frightened; he won't bite you. He has written a poem 
and a romance; and thinks he can cut out Coningshy 
and Sybil. Help him, if you can, and oblige, yours, 

"T. S. DUNCOMBE." 

Cooper read doubtfully, and turning to Duncombe, 
said: "You would not have me take a note like that?" 
"Wouldn't I?" he answered; "but I would; it is just 
the thing for you; get off and present it at once." The 
Chartist took his way to Grosvenor Gate, and found 
Disraeli in his study. Gratefully he tells the story: 

"One sees paragraphs very often now in the papers 
about th,e expressionless and jaded look of the Con- 
servative leader's face, as Mr. Disraeli sits in the 
House of Commons. Yet as I then looked upon that 
face, I thought it one of great intellectual beauty. 
The eyes seemed living lights; and the intelligent yet 
kindly way in which Mr. Disraeli inquired about the 
term of my imprisonment and treatment in prison 
convinced me that I was in the presence of a very 
shrewd as well as highly cultivated and refined man." 

Disraeli, after expressing the wish already quoted, 
gave Cooper an introduction to Moxon. But Moxon 
declined to publish The Purgatory of Suicides, "by 
Thomas Cooper, Chartist," on the ground that there 
was no chance of its selling. Cooper, writing this to 
Disraeli, received by the next post a note to Colburn, 

63 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

Disraeli's own publisher. From him also came a re- 
fusal. "I ventured," says Cooper, "to call upon Mr. 
Disraeli the second time. He seemed really concerned 
a,t what I told him; and when I asked him to give me 
a note to Messrs. Chapman & Hall, he looked thought- 
fully, and said: 'No; I know nothing of them person- 
ally, and I should not like to write to them. But I 
will give you a note to Ainsworth, and desire him to 
recommend you to Chapman & Hall.' " ^ Cooper took 
the note to Ainsworth, who, knowing that Chap- 
man & Hall consulted John Forster as their reader, 
sent Cooper on to him. "Forster looked at the poem, 
and said: 'I suppose you have no objection to alter 
the title you give yourself. I certainly advise you to 
strike the Chartist out?' 'Nay, sir,' I replied; 'I shall 
not strike it out. Mr. Disraeli advised me not to let 



* Diaraeli had relations with many publishers ; and, characteristically, he 
has not an ill-natured word for one among them : almost the only author of 
his time who did not visit his own incompetence or the indifference of the 
public upon the luckless agent. Indeed, Disraeli himself, according to one 
rumor, early wished to join the trade, as partner to Moxon. Besides Moxon's 
and Colburn's, the following are names that appear on his title-pages : John 
Murray; William Marsh; Saunders & Otley ("If you are Otley, d- Saun- 
ders — if you are Saunders, d Otley," Bulwer, at his wittiest, had said 

when he went with a grievance to Conduit Street, addressing the first repre- 
sentative of the firm he found there) ; John Maerone ; John OUivier ; Bern- 
hard Tauchnitz ; W. E. Painter ; J. J. Griffln ; David Bryce ; G. Routledge 
and Routledge, Warnes & Routledge ; Robert Hardwicke ; Rivingtons ; Long- 
man, Green, Longman, Roberts & Green, and the same firm under subsequent 
simpler guises ; William Blackwood & Sons ; John Camden Hotten ; and 
Frederick Warne & Co. To Albemarle Street, which issued his first book, 
went fitly for posthumous publication Disraeli's Rome Letters and his Cor- 
respondence with his Sister. The reigning John Murray of the 'twenties he 
counted among the first of his discoverers, allies, and friends ; and to the John 
Murray of to-day the Disraeli biographer is under many and deep obligations. 

64 



THE "SPLENDID FAILURE" 

any one persuade me to strike it out; and I mean to 
abide by his advice.' " This episode — a very typical 
one — gained a too exceptional turn from Mr. Glad- 
stone when he moved in the House of Commons the 
erection of a monument to his dead adversary in 
Westminster Abbey: 

"It is only within the last few days that I have 
read in a very interesting book, The Autobiography of 
Thomas Cooper, how in the year 1844, when his in- 
fluence with his party was not yet established, Mr. 
Cooper came to him in the character of a struggling 
literary man, who was also a Chartist, and the 
then Mr. Disraeli met him with the most ac- 
tive and cordial kindness — so ready was his sympathy 
for genius." 

The illustrations of that ingrained and cultivated 
quality of Disraeli's ("I who admire genius," was a 
phrase familiar on his lips, and both his official and 
his private life repeatedly transformed the word into 
the deed) are so plentiful and conspicuous that one 
may be pardoned for feeling a little sense of the 
ludicrous in presence of the solitary instance cited by 
Mr. Gladstone. 

"Oh, my lord, you always say agreeable things." 
So far back as the October of 1836, Lord Strangford 
The " spien- (the translator of Camoens and the father 
did Failure." ^^ George Smythe), returning to town 
from Strathfieldsaye, reported of an anti-0'Connell 
address Disraeli had just delivered to his future 
friends, the farmers of Bucks: "You have no idea 
6 65 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

of the sensation your speech has produced at Strath- 
fleldsaye." Disraeli made his deprecation: "Oh, my 
lord, you always say agreeable things." Whereupon 
Lord Strangford took aside the young speaker (not 
yet a member) and said: "I give you my honor as a 
gentleman that the Duke said at the dinner-table, 'It 
was the most manly thing yet done: when will he come 
into Parliament?' " As Eadical Bulwer had been Dis- 
raeli's political godfather, it is interesting to note 
that he, too, thought the new Nationalist's speech, 
which even Tory leaders applauded, "the finest in the 
world." 

Disraeli first met Percy, sixth Lord Strangford, in 
1832, and after a dinner given by Lord Eliot (after- 
ward Earl of St. Germans), described him as "an 
aristocratic Tom Moore," whose talk was incesssant 
and brilliant — a comparison that had been made 
already with a less friendly touch: 

Let Moore still sing, let Strangford steal from Moore, 
And swear that Camoens sang such songs of yore. 

So sang, if that is the word, the author of English 
Bards and Scotch Reviewers; and again he enjoins 
"Hibernian Strangford with thine eyes of blue" 

Cease to deceive, thy pilfered harp restore, 
Nor teach the Lusian bard to copy Moore. 

Strangford got the Legation at Lisbon very much 
in consequence of his fame as a Portuguese transla- 
tor; and Moore can have borne him no grudge; for 
when a translation of another kind was in his view — 
that was the night before he was to "meet" Jeffrey to 

66 



THE "SPLENDID FAILURE" 

avenge a notice in the Quarterly — he wrote to Strang- 
ford: ''My dear friend, if they want a biographer 
when I am gone, I think in your hands I should meet 
with most kind embalmment, so pray say something 
for me and remember me as one who has felt your 
good and social qualities" — those very qualities which 
Disraeli thought resembled Moore's own. The com- 
batants were arrested on the field, with their pistols, 
by the thoughtfulness of the seconds, unloaded. 

As a letter-writer. Lord Strangford's powers are 
attested by the replies he drew from all sorts and con- 
ditions of men — letters edited with tactful daring by 
Mr. Edward Barrington de Fonblanque, a son of Dis- 
raeli's old friend, Albany. To his heir, George, Lord 
Strangf ord bequeathed the sounding title (a tin kettle 
tied to him, the last lord called it), the brilliant 
tongue, the ready pen; a powerful combination, yet 
powerless to bring him to either the happiness or the 
fame that his rich nature craved and his talents 
promised. In the sum of man's misery the disillusions 
of parents must largely bulk, a sorrow that must go 
mostly unspoken; and the relations between this 
father and son are saved from ranking as unmitigated 
tragedy only by Disraeli's appearance in the midst 
of them. 

When Disraeli said to "Hibernian" Strangford, 
"Oh, my lord, yoti always say agreeable things," he 
seems almost to imply a doubt of the agreeable man's 
sincerity: it is our melancholy manner in a world 
wherein we look on our fellows as enemies until they 
have proved themselves to be our friends. Whether 

67 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

Disraeli was instinctively led to hold Lord Strangf ord 
guilty until he proved his innocence, one does not 
know; but this was that Lord Strangf ord who, as the 
father of George Smythe, was thus addressed, eight 
years later, by the father of Lord John Manners: 

"I lament as much as you do the influence which 
Mr. Disraeli has acquired over several of the young 
British senators" (which, by the way, he would hardly 
have called them had Disraeli not taught the world 
the phrase), "and over your son and mine especially. 
I do not know Mr. Disraeli by sight, but I have 
respect only for his talents, which I think he sadly 
misuses." 

Again: "It is grievous," writes the Duke of Rut- 
land to a confederate thinker, "that two young men 
such as John and Mr. Smythe should be led by one of 
whose integrity of purpose I have an opinion similar 
to your own, though I can judge only by his public 
career. The admirable character of our sons only 
makes them the more available by the arts of a de- 
signing person." Young England was under the sus- 
picion of the old Tory. The Radical hoof was recog- 
nized whenever Disraeli kicked up his heels, as, for 
instance, at the Manchester Athenaeum. Lord 
Strangf ord, able to report to King Ernest of Hanover 
that he had placed the ban on George's Disraelitish 
doings, received royal congratulations. The King 
wrote: "Rejoiced am I indeed, not only for your sake, 
but for the sake of George Smythe himself, that his 
good sense has led him to abandon what is termed 
'Young England.' I always felt sure that a young 

68 



THE "SPLENDID FAILURE" 

man of such rising abilities would soon wake out of 
his dreams and see the folly of being led by doctri- . 
naire's rubbish and young men who, self-conceited, 
think that they, by inspiration, know more than their 
fathers, who have been experienced long ere they" — 
he means the sons — "were begotten." The King's 
joy was not destined to endure; for though George 
Smythe had promised to talk no fancy politics at 
Manchester, he talked nonsense of another sort, if we 
take the opinion of King Ernest, who "can not under- 
stand what is meant by attempting to turn mechanics 
into poets and philosophers," and who disapproves 
of institutes likely "to make the lower orders too big 
for their boots" — boots at least are allowed them in 
an allegory. 

Of this "splendid failure," as his kinsman, Lord 
Lyttelton, called him, we have a sort of synoptical 
confession, more erratic but not less candid than any 
confession of St. Augustine's, in his own letters to 
his father. His father had been lax and severe with 
him in turn; and a paternal hobby, the repurchase 
of some of the family estate in Kent, left the school- 
boy George almost a beggar, to-day for a sovereign, 
to-morrow for some of his father's old clothes.^ A 
mercenary marriage was part of the scheme of life 
which Lord Strangford had devised for the son; and 
the son stumbled, instead, into love affairs which left 

» Among the items which George Smythe had set down in his schoolboy 
budget in apology for an expenditure of nearly ten shillings a week, over a 
period of ten months, were boots, haircutting, and postage. A later member 
for Canterbury, Mr Henniker Heaton, was to avenge his predecessor, liter- 
ally to the uttermost penny, by forcing on the Post Office the Imperial Penny 
Postage. 

69 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

him bankrupt in all credit. George was very tall, 
very strong, very handsome, very talented; and when 
he left Eton to read with Julius Hare, his father saw 
what he had made, and said that it was good. "No 
one has a finer spirit or a better heart than George." 
But within a year that same pen sets down: "He 
wants application, ambition and all those natural 
affections through which youth is capable of being 
influenced." 

George Smythe's kinsman and godfather, the 
Duke of Northumberland, subsidized his education at 
Cambridge. His own incisive record stands: "With 
talent, high spirit, courage, a spice of that genius 
which borders upon madness, I was given, as became 
my rank and not my fortune, a noble education, by 
the monstrous caste system of the English universi- 
ties. The associate of men who could spend a pound 
with less inconvenience than I could spend a shill- 
ing, ... I was not to be outdone, and got in- 
volved in debt. I took my degree, one which, if utterly 
unworthy of my talents, was yet no proof that I did 
not read, and hard, too. ... I came up to Lon- 
don with my boyhood over, with extravagant habits, 
and owing about £1,200. As if the devil was deter- 
mined to let loose upon me, when once well out of 
my depth, every wave in the river of damnation, I 
turned my thoughts to Parliament, Canterbury." 
That was in 1841, when George Smythe, not yet 
twenty-two, carried his election for the constituency 
with which his ancestors, the Sidneys of Penshurst, 
had been long associated; and the seat, which was cal- 

70 



THE "SPLENDID FAILURE ' 

culated to cost only £2,000, cost over £7,000. "I had 
brought ruin upon you" (he tells his father), "upon 
my sisters, upon myself. Moreover, with my Cam- 
bridge debts, and with a petition hanging over my 
head, my position was anything but enviable. It 
was in this situation, weighed down by a sense of all 
the mischief I had done, that I tried to speak. I broke 
down, signally and miserably, my nerves going with 
a sort of crash. What a position! I might have re- 
covered myself, but this is not an heroic age, and I 
took to drinking as an opiate and an anodyne. Then 
came other mischiefs. I thought one way the winning 
way in politics; you thought another; and my life was 
an incessant wear and tear — shame, abuse, the 
world's scorn environing me on every side. What 
wonder, then, that my nervous system has never re- 
covered those years of '41 and '42." 

So wrote George Smythe to his father from Venice 
in 1846. So he wrote, and his words stand as tne 
scored and underlined commentary of his father's 
mean suspicions of the Disraeli influence: a commen- 
tary only too crushing in its completeness. Disraeli 
was for George Smythe the heaven-sent leader and 
savior, had his family but known. He, too, with 
debts had entered Parliament and failed in a first 
speech, and he had ready for George Smythe a recipe 
which included neither drinks nor drugs. This 
doubted Disraeli was he, let us recall, who had held 
fast, through good report and ill, to that Nationalist 
creed which was able to rouse in young men, left to 
their own fresh impulses, a redeeming enthusiasm; 

71 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

that Disraeli whose "designs" were distrusted by a 
father frankly shown to be here, with callous oppor- 
tunism, in search of the "winning side." 

For the rest, George Smythe crossed his father 
once more in refusing to make matrimonial quarry of 
an heiress to restore his fortunes. He delivered a 
few brilliant speeches, and wrote a few brilliant 
sketches, so Disraelian that Disraeli was able to put 
some of their passages into the mouths of his heroes, 
and none detect the difference of tone. He published 
his Historic Fancies, and he produced a novel, Angela 
Pisani, a medley of history and of sentiment, remark- 
able perhaps for the Napoleon-worship of which 
George Smythe may be called a pioneer among Eng- 
lishmen; remarkable, too, and self -revealing in its 
presentation of the innate love of virtue in the heart 
of the heroine, unsupported by a will-power of the 
brain. He challenged Roebuck, committing thereby 
a breach of privilege, but no breach of the peace; he 
was praised by Peel, but he called the fair words of 
his leader "rancid butter," and made no headway with 
the Foreign Oflftce under-secretaryship entrusted to 
him. He attracted Brougham's attention by his 
foreign policy articles in the Morning Chronicle', also 
the friendship of Faber — which he quoted as a testi- 
monial when nearly all else was gone from him; and, 
two years after his succession to his father's peerage 
in 1855, he died of consumption — in all senses con- 
sumed away; one who had summed himself up: "My 
life has been made up of two blunders — I am a failure 
and I know it." 

72 



THE "SPLENDID FAILURE* 

Yet not wholly; for lie helped to create Coningsby, 
and he sat — to some purpose at last — for George 
Waldershare in Endymion: 

"He was a young man of about three or four 
and twenty years" (in the early days of Young Eng- 
land): "fair, with short curly brown hair and blue 
eyes; not exactly handsome, but with a countenance 
full of expression, and the index of quick emotions, 
whether of joy or of anger. He was one of those vivid 
and brilliant organizations which exercise a peculiarly 
attractive influence in youth. He had been the hero 
of the Debating Club at Cambridge, and many be- 
lieved in consequence that he must become Prime 
Minister. . , . Waldershare was profligate but 
sentimental; unprincipled but romantic; the child of 
whim and the slave of imagination so freakish and 
deceptive that it was almost impossible to foretell 
his course. He was alike capable of sacriflcing all his 
feelings to worldly considerations or of forfeiting the 
world for a visionary caprice." 

And of his talk: "It was a rhapsody of fancy, fun, 
knowledge, anecdote, brilliant badinage — even pas- 
sionate seriousness. Sometimes he recited poetry, 
and his voice was musical; and when he had attuned 
his companions to a sentimental pitch, he would break 
into mockery, and touch with delicate satire every 
chord of human feeling." 

George Smythe, misunderstood by his father, was 
sanely understood at last: all the Jekyll in him, all 
the Hyde, Disraeli, speaking of him by name in his 
General Preface, written more than a dozen years 

73 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

after his friend's doom, hardly did more than abbre- 
viate his novelist sketch: "George Smythe, after- 
ward seventh Lord Strangford, a man of brilliant 
gifts, of dazzling wit, infinite culture, and fascinating 
manners. His influence over youth was remarkable; 
he could promulgate a new faith with graceful 
enthusiasm." 

So much it seems desirable to say of one of the 
few men who influenced Disraeli who influenced the 
nation. George Smythe has a second-hand fame; he 
is a part of the power behind the Disraelian throne. 
And for the scolding sixth Viscount, who did not 
always say agreeable things, there is secured a certain 
third-hand immortality as the father of the man who 
was Disraeli's friend. The revenges of Time are in- 
exorable. 

"The Evelyns have always had good mothers." 
Writing to his sister in the September of 1843, Dis- 
At the Deep- raeli mentions that he and Mrs. Disraeli 
^^"^* have just returned from a most agreeable 

visit to Deepdene: "One night I sat next to Mrs. Eve- 
lyn of Wotton, a widow; her son, the present squire, 
there also; a young Oxonian and full of Young Eng- 
land." Young England was then beginning to attract 
the smiles of the press as a new party, and some 
serious sympathy in college halls. 

Mr. John Evelyn of Wotton lives to tell with un- 
touched vivacity the tale of that meeting. He re- 
members that he often went in his vacations to the 
Deepdene, where his neighbor, Mr. Henry Hope, 

74 



AT THE DEEPDENE 

played the part of a hospitable Mseeenas to the mem- 
bers of the Young England party in those glades and 
galleries the dedication of Coningshy commemorated 
in 1844. There he met George Smythe, M.P., reputed 
hero of Coningshy, twenty-five years of age in that year 
1843 (as also was Lord John Manners), and Baillie 
Cochrane, M.P., the Buckhurst of the same novel. At 
the Deepdene, too, he met, oftener than her husband, 
Mrs. Disraeli, whom he recalls as remarkably girlish 
in manner, considering that she was in her fifties. On 
this single occasion of his meeting there with Dis- 
raeli, he was present only at dinner, and from across 
the table he watched his mother and Disraeli making 
good talk together. Driving home to Wotton under 
the stars, he asked her if Disraeli had said anything 
memorable. She answered with pride that he had 
said: "The Evelyns have always had good mothers." 
Her son, smiling, said: "That was a safe remark to 
make to you, mother; but I hardly think he can be 
so conversant with the annals of a quiet family like 
ours as the statement seems to imply." All the same, 
Disraeli spoke, in part at least, by the book — by the 
book in which John Evelyn the Diarist pays filial 
tribute to the woman from whose sighs he derived 
his own breath of life. 

"Do you think Dr. Newman will be able to hold 
his ground at Oxford?" This question was put by 
Disraeli at Deepdene to the "young Oxonian and full 
of Young England" on the occasion in question. 
After dinner, and when the men were about to join 
the ladies in the drawing-room, Disraeli stepped 

75 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

round to him with a query that showed him alert to 
acquire the living knowledge of which his books bore 
witness; discerning (as it here happened) in putting 
the right question in the right quarter; and ready, as 
usual, to consort with the new generation. Dr. New- 
man held his own for just two years longer; and Dis- 
raeli's regret at his going to Rome was expressed a 
generation later when he spoke of it in the General 
Preface to his novels, as dealing the Anglican Church 
a blow under which she still reeled. He pronounced 
it to be "a blunder." The phrase, in Newman's ears, 
must have smacked of Downing Street complacency; 
for he hit out at Disraeli with the opinion that the 
politician could be expected to view things other 
than merely politically as little as a chimpanzee could 
be expected to give birth to a human baby: a division, 
by inference, between politics and religion which at 
least two modern Pontiffs (and Disraeli with them) 
repudiate and condemn. 

When Mr. Evelyn, undergraduate no longer, was 
returned to Parliament for West Surrey in 1849, Dis- 
raeli, remembering the meeting, sent him a short note 
of congratulation. But though Mr. Evelyn sat among 
his supporters in the House, and attended Mrs. Dis- 
raeli's crushes at Grosvenor Gate, he had no further 
converse with Disraeli. The case is typical, and is 
worth a mention as explaining some of the difficulties 
of a Disraeli biographer. Mr. Evelyn had for a col- 
league Mr. Henry Drummond, one of the numerous 
members of the party who showed a rather open aver- 
sion from its great educator — masters, for one thing, 

76 



SPORT AND POLITICS 

are rarely popular with pupils. Possibly Mr. Evelyn 
was classed with his colleague by Disraeli, and, if so, 
unjustly. The fact remains that, for one reason or 
another, Disraeli had little or no private intercourse 
with numbers of men who were brought into close 
public association with him. He became absorbed in 
the public service; and, with party and state secrets 
in his keeping, he was too discreet to form many in- 
timacies. These, such as they were, were kept in 
later life for women like Lady Bradford and Lady 
Chesterfield, in whom his trust was entire. But that 
early meeting with the unconventional Tory leader 
had its distinguishing influence on the future opinions 
of the young man. 

"It is the Blue Kibbon of the Turf." The phrase 
(sometimes quoted as Lord George Bentinck's) was 
Sport and characteristically Disraeli's, coined by 
Politics. j^jjjj^ jj^ j^g^g Qjj g^jj occasion of which his 

pen has left the record: 

"The day after the Derby, the writer met Lord 
George Bentinck in the library of the House of Com- 
mons. He was standing before the bookshelves with- 
a volume in his hand, and his countenance was greatly 
disturbed. His resolutions in favor of the Colonial 
Interest after all his labors had been negatived by 
the Committee on the 22nd, and on the 24th his horse. 
Surplice, whom he had parted with among the rest 
of his stud, solely that he might pursue without dis- 
traction his labors on behalf of the great interests 
of the country, had won that paramount and Olym- 

77 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

plan stake to gain which had been the object of his 
life. He had nothing to console him, and nothing to 
sustain him except his pride. Even that deserted him 
before a heart which he knew at least could yield 
him sympathy. He gave a sort of superb groan: 

" ^All my life I have been trying for this, and for 
what have I sacrificed it?' he murmured. 

"It was in vain to offer solace. 

" 'You do not know what the Derby is?' he moaned 
out. 

" 'Yes, I do; it is the Blue Ribbon of the Turf.' 

" 'It is the Blue Ribbon of the Turf,' he slowly re- 
peated to himself, and sitting down at the table, he 
buried himself in a folio of statistics." 

Though Disraeli ranks not among wearers of the 
blue ribbon of the Garter who won "the Blue Ribbon 
of the Turf," he had had a moment's dream of that 
double eminence. About half a dozen years before 
this interview he took a half-share, Lord George 
Bentinck the other, in a highly bred filly called Kit- 
ten, a daughter of Bay Middleton, a Derby winner, 
and of a winner of the Oaks. This pedigree was pro- 
lific of hopes never to be realized. Kitten was too 
light in the forelegs to stand training even for a two- 
year-old stake over a half-mile course; and Lord 
Beaconsfield escaped the temptation to become the 
owner of a racing stable. What would have hap- 
pened, had he, as well as the fourteenth Earl of 
Derby, been a racing man? At a political crisis in 
1850, when it was the fortunes of the Tory party that 
were at stake, Disraeli had to write from Hughenden: 

78 



"THE DEAR YOUNG MEN" 

"1 go to town to-morrow to catch a council with 
Stanley, flitting between Whittlebury and Good- 
wood." 

Of one who was young, and otherwise interesting 
to Disraeli, and who, in the early stage of public office 
"The Dear work, complained that it was dry, the 
Young Men." j^i^ig^ei. said: "All details are dry; he 
must not be discouraged, it is the same in every 
oflflce. The main point is to get the first step on the 
ladder." 

This is one of Disraeli's many sayings of mature 
and late life evincing his practical sympathies with 
"the New Generation." Remembering his own "mis- 
erable youth," as he moodily called it when he thought 
only of the limitations then imposed on his ambitions 
by his want of means, he went out of his way, as a 
minister, to discover talent in the young men about 
town and to foster and reward it. In the nominations 
for ofiicial work he made in this spirit, he had some 
failures and many successes. Mr. Bertie Tremaine, 
who had early succeeded to a large estate and lived 
in Grosvenor Street, "was always playing at politics, 
and, being two and twenty, was discontented that he 
was not Chancellor of the Exchequer like Mr. Pitt." 
But the "little master" who lay in wait for the min- 
ister found him wary; he discriminated; when he saw 
talent, he welcomed it, not only among the scions of 
great political houses, the Hamiltons, the Lowthers, 
the Lennoxes, and the Stanhopes, but among men 
who, in this sense, had no connections — so that a 

79 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

John Pope Hennessey, for instance, got at least his 
opportunity. 

Everybody knows the panegyric which Sidonia 
(the first three letters of whose name are also the re- 
versed three of Disraeli's own) passes on the achieve- 
ments of youth — a panegyric which opens on a note 
of discrimination for the warning of succeeding gen- 
erations of Bertie Tremaines: 

"Do not suppose that I hold that youth is genius; 
all I say is that genius, when young, is divine. Why, 
the greatest captains of ancient and modern times 
both conquered Italy at five-and-twenty. Youth, ex- 
treme youth, overthrew the Persian Empire. Don 
John of Austria won Lepanto at twenty-five. Gaston 
de Foix was only twenty-two when he stood a victor 
on the plain of Ravenna. Every one remembers 
Cond^ and Recroy at the same age. Gustavus 
Adolphus died at thirty-eight. Look at his captains. 
Cortes was little more than thirty when he gazed upon 
the golden cupolas of Mexico. When Maurice of 
Saxony died at the age of thirty-two all Europe ac- 
knowledged the loss of the greatest captain and the 
profoundest statesman of his age. Then there is Nel- 
son, Olive. But these are great warriors, and per- 
haps you may think there are greater things than 
war. But take the most illustrious achievements of 
civil prudence. Innocent III, the greatest of the 
Popes, was the despot of Christendom at thirty-seven. 
John de' Medici was a cardinal at fifteen. He was 
Pope as Leo X at thirty-seven. Luther robbed him of 
his richest province at thirty-five. Take Ignatius Loy- 

80 



"THE DEAR YOUNG MEN" 

ola and John Wesley — they worked with young brains. 
Ignatius was only thirty when he made his pilgrimage 
and wrote the Spiritual Exercises. Pascal wrote a 
great work at sixteen, and died at thirty-seven the 
greatest of Frenchmen. Ah! that fatal thirty-seven, 
which reminds me of Byron, greater even as a man 
than as a writer. Was it experience that guided the 
pencil of Kaphael when he painted the palaces of 
Kome? He, too, died at thirty-seven. Richelieu was 
Secretary of State at thirty-one. Well, then, there 
were Bolingbroke and Pitt, both ministers before 
other men left off cricket. Grotius was in great 
practise at seventeen and Attorney-General at 
twenty-four, and Acquaviva — Acquaviva was general 
of the Jesuits, ruled every cabinet in Europe, and 
colonized America before he was thirty-seven. That 
was indeed a position! But it is needless to multiply 
instances. The history of heroes is the history of 
youth," 

From a man at the end of his own thirties came 
this panegyric, which was also a plea. For round 
about him had already gathered men younger than 
himself — men whose youth was so much their mark 
that it labeled, if it did not brand, them as the leaders 
of Young England. And let it be remembered that 
Disraeli did not create that party; what he did was to 
recognize it, where others smiled. For him, a man — 
a man always — who had worn waistcoats of so many 
colors, the white waistcoat a Young Englander in- 
vented was no sign of effeminacy. Had he been a man 
of smiles, he could hardly have raised one at the ap- 
7 81 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

pellation of the "White Waistcoat party" affixed in 
easy ridicule to men of large views, large sympathies, 
and, as the event has proved, of large influence over 
the course of public affairs. Disraeli became the ex- 
pounder of a creed which was really a Cambridge 
Movement, and might be so called as a companion to 
the not far divided Oxford Movement that was its 
contemporary. Some years ago. Professor Saintsbury 
wrote a magazine article on the Young England Move- 
ment; and when he met Lord Houghton for the first 
time after its publication the Monckton-Milnes of old 
days said: "I wish you had told me you were going to 
write that. I could have set you right on a great 
many things which nobody knows now except Lord 
John Manners." 

Lord Houghton, in answer to a suggestion that 
he should tell his story first-hand, said: "Well, I did 
think of writing something, but I am too old and it 
is too much trouble," and the only relevant point the 
Professor drew from the old Young Englander was 
the not new one to the knowing: "Disraeli knew 
nothing at all about it at first: he came in after- 
ward." 

On this and other points the authority named by 
Lord Houghton is still with us, in venerable old age; 
and in a communication made to me in May, 1903, 
John, Duke of Rutland, writes: "Lord Houghton was 
right. Lord Beaconsfield did not identify himself at 
first with the movement, but did so before long, and 
by the force of genius and longer experience at once 
became the real leader." The Oxford Movement had 

82 



"THE DEAR YOUNG MEN" 

a definite day of birth assigned to it by Newman — 
namely, Keble's famous sermon in 1833, on the Na- 
tional Apostasy. The Cambridge Movement came 
into existence more informally. "It had no definite 
birthday," the Duke of Kutland declares, "no chair- 
man, no secretary, no place of meeting; and consisted 
in the first instance of a few young men who had been 
friends at Cambridge, drawn together by political or 
ecclesiastical sympathies." It went out of existence 
equally without ceremony, having done its work. 
"When the great split occurred in 1846," the Duke 
writes, "Young England shared in the disruption. 
Mr. Disraeli, Mr. Augustus Stafford, I, and others be- 
came merged in the Protectionist ranks, and some 
followed Sir Robert Peel." For the time being, how- 
ever, the Young Englanders made what would later 
have been called a Fourth Party: a fact not to be ig- 
nored in tracing the consistent thread of Disraeli's 
political career. 

A member of Parliament once asked Disraeli if he 
might introduce his young son to him, at the same 
time adding a request that the minister would offer 
to the boy a few words of advice he might always 
remember. Disraeli, protesting that the son could 
learn all things from his father, submitted to say: 
"Be amusing. Never tell unkind stories; above all, 
never tell long ones." 

"You can not say too many nice things. I am in- 
ordinately vain, and delight in praise." This was Dis- 
raeli's candor to Lady Lamington, whose guest he was 
shortly after his great reception at Oxford, in 1853. 

88 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

Lady Lamington (the wife of his old friend Baillie^ 
Cochrane) told him that the letters she got from un^ 
dergraduates were filled with his praise. 

''Read them all to me," he said, when she paused, 
"1 like to hear them all." Praise from the young 
men never lost its savor for Disraeli. Lord Derby had 
been inaugurated as Chancellor; but the receptions 
accorded to the two leaders showed Disraeli to be the 
idol of Young Oxford. The memory of that day of 
his D.C.L. — the honorary degree which his father had 
borne before him — was dear to him till the end of life. 

Domestic love — the patrimony of the Jewish race 
— had a conspicuous illustration in Disraeli; and he 
knew even when he wrote of schoolboy life, the love 
that two men of his race felt for each other, passing 
the love of women. His love for his father makes 
a delightful record; there is nothing quite like it to 
be found in the memoirs of other statesmen, from 
Pitt to Macaulay and Gladstone. His brothers he 
loved to serve; once to the petulance of Peel, who, 
purist as he proclaimed himself as to patronage, saw 
mighty impudence in the request for the post of clerk 
for Ralph Disraeli since it came from Benjamin, whose 
support of the minister was not, like his courage in 
asking the favor, unflinching. This familiar love of 
fathers and brothers was not then so common among 
Englishmen as it now is. Some sons rarely saw their 
fathers, thought of them and addressed them by 
formal titles, and never kissed them. Disraeli was 
too manly to think that affection unmanned men; and 
in this regard he may be quoted as one of the revivers 

84 



"THE DEAR YOUNG MEN" 

of masculine friendships among Englishmen. "We 
are happy in our friends," declares one of his heroes, 
and those friends were not women. Horace had pre- 
ceded him in that as in other respects, and if some 
might object that Frederick Faber had got a little too 
near the hymnology in which he afterward excelled 
when he told his friend, Lord John Manners, that he 
walked with "a radiance round his brows like saints 
in pictures," and apostrophized. 

Thine eyes that do with such sweet skill express 
Thy soul's hereditary gentleness, 

every one will admit that the growth of more ro- 
mantic relations between persons of the same sex has 
added to existence one of its most enduring charms — 
a charm against the melancholy of loneliness, and a 
refuge from the fever of passion. In his life, as in 
his novels, male friends figure: a goodly, and a godly, 
fellowship; far from it was the taint of effeminacy. 
Disraeli will long live as the promoter of senti- 
ment, and sentiment wholly wholesome among "the 
dear young men." 

Disraeli lived to see a later Fourth Party yield a 
later Chancellor of the Exchequer: "Some people, 
judging young men, do not distinguish between what 
is shallow and what is callow — I say all the difference 
in the world. When I first remarked young Randolph 
Churchill, he was callow; but " (mentioning an- 
other son of a duke) "never was callow, but only shal- 
low, and will be all his life." Like most of Disraeli's 
predictions, this last also has been remorselessly ful- 
filled. 

85 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

"Tell So-and-so to come to see me; I like him very 
much." Constant was Disraeli's interest in juniors 
who served him; and this message was to one such, 
sent through a friend, who adds: "Outsiders little 
knew the care and thought he always bestowed in 
endeavoring to ascertain who possessed the strongest 
qualifications for any post he had to give. As an 
instance, a short time before his death, one of the 
'poor gentlemen's' posts in the Charterhouse fell into 
his gift. He took the utmost trouble about it, feel- 
ing anxious that the other 'poor gentlemen' should 
have a suitable person added to their number." 

To young Parliamentarians: "Never explain." To 
a young man of fortune entering Parliament: "Look 
at it as you will, ours is a beastly career." 

"Oh, I find it uncommonly light." So said Disraeli 
the first time he tried on the heavy robe of the 
Robes of Chancellor of the Exchequer (1852). This 

Office. and other expressions of the exhilaration 

he felt on entering high official life were preserved 
by Mr. George H. Parkin ton, who was clerk to Baron 
Parke, and who did that most unusual thing among 
men who met Disraeli — used his ears and eyes and 
kept a diary. This is Mr. Parkinton's private entry 
under date June 12, 1852: 

"Mr, Disraeli, the new Chancellor of the Ex- 
chequer, came down about two o'clock to be sworn 
in. He was quite alone, and Davis, the usher, showed 
him into the judges' private room, where I happened 
to be arranging some papers. I placed him a chair, 

86 



d 




GROSVEJNOR GATE, NOW 29 PARK LANE. 
Disraeli's town residence, 1S39-1S72. 



i 



ROBES OF OFFICE 

and said I would go and tell the judges he had ar- 
rived. In a few minutes they came in — Lord Chief 
Baron Pollock, Barons Parke, Alderson, Rolfe, and 
Piatt. All seemed to know him, and all talked and 
laughed together.^ His new black silk robe, heavily 
embroidered with gold bullion fringe and lace, was 
lying across a chair. 

" 'Here, get on your gown,' said Baron Alderson; 
^you'll find it monstrously heavy.' 

" 'Oh, I find it uncommonly light,' said the new 
Chancellor. 

" 'Well, it's heavy with what makes other things 
light,' said the Lord Chief Baron. 

" 'Now, what am I to say and do in this perform- 
ance?' was the next question. 

" 'Why, you'll first be sworn in by Vincent, and 
then you'll sit down again; and if you look to the ex- 
treme left of the first row of counsel you will see a 
rather tall man looking at you. That is Mr. Willes 
out of court, but Mr. Tubman in court, and you must 
say, "Mr. Tubman, have you anything to move?" He 
will make his motion, and when he sits down you must 
say, "Take a rule, Mr. Tubman," and that will be the 
end of the affair.' 

"The ushers were summoned, and all marched to 
the bench — Baron Piatt as junior baron first, Mr. Dis- 
raeli last, immediately preceded by the Lord Chief 
Baron. Mr. Vincent, the Queen's Remembrancer, ad- 

' Lord Chief Baron Pollock had known the Chancellor of the Exchequer 
as a young member of Parliament against whom, self-defended, he had ap- 
peared with the Attorney-General and other big-wigs in the Austin breach of 
privilege case. 

87 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

ministered the ancient oath, in Norman-French I 
think, Mr. Tubman (afterward Mr. Justice Willes) 
made some fictitious motion, was duly desired to take 
a rule, and the Chancellor and barons returned to the 
private room. 

" 'Well, I must say you fellows have easy work to 
do if this is a specimen,' said Mr. Disraeli. 

" 'Now, don't you think that, or you'll be cutting 
down our salaries,' replied one of the judges. 

" 'Take care of that robe,' said Baron Alderson; 
'you can leave it to your son when the Queen makes 
him a Chancellor.' 

"Oh no; you've settled that business,' said the 
new Chancellor; 'you'd decide that was fettering the 
Royal prerogative.' 

"There was a general roar at this witty allusion 
to a very important case just decided by the House 
of Lords, in which the Peers had held that a large 
monetary bequest by the late Earl of Bridgwater to 
his son, on condition that he should obtain the title 
of duke within a certain time, was void on the ground 
that it was a fettering of the Royal prerogative. There 
was a mutual shaking of hands, and all parties 
separated." 

To a Devonshire man whom Disraeli met as a fel- 
low guest of Monckton-Milnes at Fryston in the first 
Mrs Brydg-es ^^ties: "Do you know a mad woman 
Wiilyams, named Willy ams at Torquay?" 

Benefactress 

Disraeli, who, on first acquaintance 
with his future wife, rallied her as "a rattle 
and a flirt" — a married flirt — was equally un- 

88 



MRS. BRYDGES WILLYAMS 

expected in his reading of the character of 
Mrs. Brydges Willyams, who later showed her 
lunacy by leaving him her fortune. When he 
put this query, he did not know her, and the letter 
she had written to him, offering homage and asking 
advice, he had put into the fire. Luckily for him, 
and her, the lady possessed some of the persistency 
she admired in her hero; and the letters he later ad- 
dressed to her allow the opportunity of telling her 
strange story in another place. The Fryston guest, 
who knew her only by reputation, assured the inquirer 
that, though perhaps eccentric, she was certainly 
sane. The sequel is told later in the story of "The 
Woman of the Windfall." 

"There was a Palmerston." This new version of 
the "So passeth the glory of the world away" was 
whispered by Disraeli to Henry Bulwer on the stairs 
at Holland House when Lord Palmerston had, in fact, 
received a check (no more) in his career by his dis- 
missal from the Foreign Office. The confident air of 
the Minister added to the jubilation which his resigna- 
tion spread among his opponents. "He reminds one 
of a favorite footman on easy terms with his mis- 
tress," Disraeli had said of him long before. The 
easiness of the Foreign Secretary's terms with his 
mistress Queen Victoria was, however, the cause of 
his dismissal; for at the critical time of the coup cTetat, 
Lord Palmerston wrote hasty messages without con- 
sulting the Queen, who disapproved them, and whose 
appeal to the Cabinet resulted in Palmerston's with- 
drawal. 

89 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

A common remark of Disraeli's in his own and 
the nineteenth century's 'forties: "I get duller every 
day." Stevenson, dying much younger 
than Disraeli, was proportionately early 
in coming to the middle age that is marked by the 
middling act, rather than by impulse; the age that 
does not boldly adventure, but "watches and counts." 
Stevenson clung to youth, if only as an artistic stock- 
in-trade. "Don't give in that you are aging, and you 
won't age. I have exactly the same faults and quali- 
ties still; only a little duller, greedier, and better-tem- 
pered; a little less tolerant of pain and more tolerant 
of tedium." 

Disraeli, like most youths of imagination, dreaded 
middle age: "I remember when the prospect of losing 
my youth frightened me out of my wits; I dreamt of 
nothing but gray hairs, a paunch, and the gout or the 
gravel." 

Things often look worse in prospect than they 
turn out to be on closer approach. Disraeli realized, 
with Lord Cadurcis, that "every period of life has 
its pleasures"; and even when the gout (alone of his 
list of presentiments) racked him in advanced age, he 
thought life still worth living. 

"Nohody is quite well." That was Disraeli's reply, 
late in life, when Mrs. Duncan Stewart asked him if 
he were "quite well." "Nobody is quite well" is per- 
haps capable of this interpretation — that health is 
always delicate as a subject of inquiry; especially 
when the query implies such patronage as may be sus- 
pected in a strong man's query to a weak one, or a 

90 



MIDDLINGNESS 

young man's to an older one. Did not Queen Victoria 
snap a great ecclesiastical dignitary's head off on her 
Diamond Jubilee day, he expressing, with pious 
unction, the hope that she was not too greatly 
fatigued? "Why should I be?" she tartly demanded; 
for really he was only a few years younger than she, 
and looked, in the said function, far more "dis- 
tressed." There is a certain quality of irritation, too, 
in the query "How are you?" extorted at the dictation 
of a chance meeting — that is to say, if people are ex- 
pected to reply. As a phrase bandied between pass- 
ers-by, it is a mere salute; it exacts no counter-cry ex- 
cept a repetition of itself — a barren formula, indeed, 
but one that does not bore. Disraeli's reply may be 
commended for use to those who will not compromise 
themselves by a boastful admission of vulgar health, 
but have too much dignity to enter upon personal de- 
tails: that diagnosis which produces more weariness 
and despair in the hearer than ever the utterer ex- 
perienced. As a statement of fact, too, the Disraelian 
saying stands. No civilized body ever is quite well — 
that is to say, perfectly developed for all its multi- 
farious offices; and the more civilized, perhaps, the 
worst it must be. How can a genus that is in trans- 
formation — shedding hair, teeth, nails, and toes — be 
feeling "quite well" in the process? The poets, whom 
Disraeli knew for our greatest, are even now among 
their fellows what the pearl was popularly believed 
to be among oyster-shells — a disease; they attain 
beauty by disaster. As for philosophers, Mr. Herbert 
Spencer used to assure his friends that he "had not 

91 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

known a day's health for fifty years" — and that num- 
ber must be sixty now. 

Despite her luckless question, Mrs. Duncan Stew- 
art was reported to be a good talker; and she knew 
the Disraelis from their earlier married life. "One 
day," she reports, "when I was sitting alone in my 
house at Liverpool, a note of introduction was 
brought in for me from Mr. Milner Gibson, whom I 
had known in London, and the cards of Mr. and Mrs. 
Disraeli. He was a young man then, all curly and 
smart, and his wife, though much older than himself, 
was a very handsome, imperial-looking woman." It 
is on the unverified gossip of this Mrs. Duncan Stew- 
art that Lady Beaconsfield has been discovered as 
originally a factory-girl whom Mr. Wyndham Lewis 
saw going to her work, "beautiful and with bare feet." 
Nobody is quite well-informed. 

Disraeli, who knew railways when they were yet 
a novelty, never got over a certain nervousness about 
^ . , . catching a train. "Do not let me be late," 

Trepidations. ^ 

he said to his hostess at the close of a 
visit to Lamington. "So many friends say, 'You have 
five minutes more,' and I am tempted to linger, al- 
though I like to be at the station at least a quarter 
of an hour before the time of starting." 

In ways other than those of the rail, Disraeli 
showed himself a man of instant anxieties. A seem- 
ingly phlegmatic may in reality be a very nervous 
man. The "mask," as Von Angeli called it, or the 
"brazen mask" of Mr. Balfour's ascription, was, in 

92 



TREPIDATIONS 

Disraeli's case, a veritable mask to this extent — it 
covered a multitude of perturbations. The Sphinx 
hesitated, had its tremors and palpitations for all it 
looked out on mankind with a surface calm. The 
great houses, opening their portals to Disraeli the 
Younger, offered hospitality to a guest who was never 
quite at happy ease among strangers; and, like his 
own Tancred, he had to recall his noble aims and ends 
as he climbed staircases and heard his name thrown 
from one servant to another. The hostess who heard 
it smiled graciously on a young man who seemed im- 
perturbable enough without, but was dynamic with- 
in. Disraeli had the nervous man's one hope — 
courage. He did not fly; he overcame. He liked to 
be asked to the Royal Academy Banquet; but on such 
occasions there was an indigestion under his plate 
in the slip of paper containing the name of his toast. 
His buttoning and unbuttoning of his coat during the 
stress of a Parliamentary oration, his handkerchief 
play, and half his gestures, were the tricks of a speak- 
er in search of distractions that put him and his 
audience at ease. He never made a speech of any 
consequence that did not cost him a moment of re- 
luctance. A great triumph, too, went near to un- 
nerving him. At Oxford in 1853 the new D.C.L. had 
more than his usual pallor when he bowed in response 
to the deafening plaudits of the undergraduates. 

An instance of Disraeli's nervous anxiety in affairs 
of State, even those that did not involve a public 
appearance, is supplied by an incident at the time of 
his formation of the Conservative Ministry of 1874. 

93 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

Much, in his mind, depended on the adhesion of Lord 
Salisbury, a colleague who had looked on him askance, 
and had held him up to obloquy in the Saturday 
Review — hence Disraeli's reference to this "master of 
flouts and jibes" who had attacked him, he said, be- 
fore he was his colleague, and after he was his col- 
league — ^"I do not know if he attacked me when he 
was my colleague." Lord Salisbury had, moreover, 
deserted him at the critical moment in both Disraeli's 
and his party's fortunes, when Disraeli settled the 
question of Reform, and, in so doing, bequeathed to 
Lord Salisbury the long tenure of power he did not 
himself live to see. How complete a convert to the 
principle of an extended franchise — dear from the 
first to Disraeli, who bided his time — Lord Salisbury 
later became, may be inferred from his willingness to 
declare war against the Boers in order to gain for 
his countrymen in Johannesburg the privilege he had 
denied to his countrymen at home. Whether Disraeli, 
who had a high respect for race, and who always felt 
grateful to the Dutch for the hospitality extended to 
his grandfather in Amsterdam, would have welcomed 
the promulgation of Reform by the mouth of the can- 
non is a point I leave to the pedants of the Athenaeum 
Club who used to spend hours — and tempers — in dis- 
cussing whether Macaulay, if alive, would rank as a 
supporter of Mr. Gladstone's scheme of Home Rule. 
Disraeli, however, bore no personal ill-will; nor 
was it possible for him to gratify a private grudge, 
if grudge there had been, at the cost of the party's, 
and consequently the public, interest. Lord Salisbury 

94 



I 




DISRAELI AT THE DATE OF PUS FIRST BECOMING CHANCELLOR 
OF THE EXCHEQUER. 



TREPIDATIONS 

had, therefore, to be secured for the Administration 
demanded by the decisive Conservative majority se- 
cured at the polls in 1874. From Whitehall Gardens 
Disraeli wrote a note to Arlington Street, asking 
Lord Salisbury to call that afternoon at five o'clock. 
As the hour approached, Disraeli felt keen anxiety. 
He watched the clock uneasily; and as the hand ap- 
proached the stroke he became feverishly restless. 
He prescribed for himself a stroll on the Embank- 
ment, and, leaving word that he would be back in five 
minutes and that Lord Salisbury, if he came mean- 
while, was to be kept, he paced the pavement, build- 
ing castles in air, fair to see, only to demolish them 
as they reached their crown. Returning, he was told 
that Lord Salisbury had called, but had not accepted 
the invitation to wait. This was torment. He climbed 
into a hansom — in no mood, be sure, to say with 
Lothair ("leaping" into his), " 'Tis the gondola of 
London" — and reached Arlington Street before Lord 
Salisbury's return. Only a few minutes longer lasted 
the suspense which the contretemps had increased. 
Disraeli came away with the knowledge that Lord 
Salisbury would take office, owning him chief — the 
greatest mark of confidence. Peel had said, that one 
man could show toward another. 

When, after the "Peace with Honor" triumph 
Lord Salisbury shared with Disraeli, the forces of 
Toryism suffered defeat, and Disraeli was without 
what he called "a home," the Salisburys put Hatfield 
at his disposal during one of their absences abroad. 
Disraeli loved its library; above all, he valued the evi- 

95 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

dence this house-lending gave him of the establish- 
ment of intimate confidence between him and the 
former foe of his own household; and there, to the 
proud records of the Cecils, he added yet another 
item — that of this peaceful sojourn of his own beneath 
the roof long associated with their race. 

James Clay, M.P. for Hull: "Well, Disraeli, 

when you and I traveled together years ago, who 

would ever have thought that you would 
Memories. . ^^. . 

be Prime Minister?" 

Disraeli: "Who, indeed! But as we used to say 
when we were in the East, 'God is great,' and now 
'He's greater than ever." 

The acquaintance between the Disraeli family and 
James Clay (who was the son of a London merchant, 
and educated at Winchester and Balliol) began early 
in Disraeli's and, therefore, in Clay's life — for both 
were born in the same year (1804); but it was not at 
first a very smiling attachment. So we may gather 
from Disraeli's phrase on meeting him unexpectedly 
in Malta in 1830: "James Clay here, immensely im- 
proved." Not that he need have been very low down 
at the outset, seeing to what pinnacle his "improve- 
ment" raised him: "He has already beat the whole 
garrison at rackets and billiards and other wicked 
games, given lessons to their prima donna, and secca- 
tura'd the primo tenore. Keally he has turned out a 
most agreeable personage. Lord Burghersh wrote an 
opera for him and Lady Normanby a farce. He dished 
Prince Pignatelli at billiards and did the Russian Le- 

96 



MEMORIES 

gation at ecarW A man of discernment, too; for, 
conscious of his own success as he was, he was thus 
reported of by Disraeli: "Clay confesses my triumph 
is complete and unrivaled." The two friends became 
traveling companions, quitted Malta on a yacht 
which Clay hired ("he intends to turn pirate") and on 
which ("it bears the unpoetical title of Susan, which 
is a bore") Disraeli and Meredith became "passengers 
-at a fair rate, and he drops us whenever and wherever 
we like." In their future wanderings Disraeli con- 
tinued (it is not always so in such cases) to find Clay 
^'a. very agreeable companion"; and when both re- 
turned to England in 1831 the comradeship did not 
end; for Disraeli several years later went electioneer- 
ing (unsuccessfully) in the North with his friend, and 
they afterward confronted each other from opposite 
sides in the House of Commons, Clay, returned 
from Hull in 1847, became something of an author- 
ity on shipping, and yet a greater authority on 
whist. 

In the hurly-burly of politics the Tory leader found 
time to exchange memories of the rare old times with 
the Liberal member, to whom he was "Ben" to the 
end. That end came in 1873 to Clay, after whom, 
during his fatal illness, the statesman, so directing 
n daily walk at Brighton, regularly called to inquire. 
Of Clay's four sons, of whom the world has heard, the 
eldest, Harry Ernest Clay (now named by Royal li- 
cense Ker-Seymer), went into diplomacy; and another 
brother had the rare distinction of serving as secre- 
tary at different times both Gladstone and Disraeli. 
8 97 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

To a third, well known in society and as a playwright, 
I must express my indebtedness for these memories 
of his father's famous friendship. He can vaguely 
recall dinner-table chaff in which Disraeli says of 
some bill that it is "dead as Lazarus," and Clay re- 
torts: "But, Ben, Lazarus rose again." It is always 
an agreeable duty to note when loyal sons reserve for 
their fathers all the appropriate remarks. 

"When I was young and abroad I met one of the 
Gordons — a Sir Charles, not unlike his brother. Lord 
Aberdeen, the Foreign Minister, except that the fam- 
ily frigidity of the Gordons had not in his case sub- 
sided into sullenness." 

"If we must have wanderings from truth, let them 
at least be on agreeable byways. The first time I 
dined with a British Governor was at Gibraltar, and 
on that occasion the hostess said that she was un- 
well, but made the effort to come to table on my 
account. I knew it was a fib. Yet, over decades of 
years, I still recall as a true kindness her ladyship's 
flattering falsity. Lying is a crime only where it is 
a cruelty." 

To a bachelor, of whom he asked, "Where do you 
live now?" and who replied that he was what Disraeli 
had described in one book as "that true freeman, a 
man in chambers," and, in another book as "the only 
real monarch," Disraeli, with a revised judgment, re- 
plied: "A desolate monarchy." 

"When I meet a man whose name I have utterly 
forgotten, I say: 'And how is the old complaint?'" 
To one who asked Disraeli if the uses of adversity 

98 



PATRONAGE 

really were sweet : "Yes, if the adversity does not last 
too long." 

He spoke as a specialist: but even specialists 
speak ambiguously. "Enough is as good as a 
feast." But who, for any but himself, shall define the 
"enough"? 

After listening to the first speech made by Dr. 

Magee, Bishop of Peterborough: "Oho! we have got 

a customer here!" The subject of this 

Patronage. 

bluflfly comprehensive and incoherent- 
ly expressive exclamation (of a kind that some- 
times surprised idealists on the lips of Dante 
Rossetti as well as of Disraeli) was himself of 
Disraeli's appointing. With due deference to local 
needs, and a recognition of the fact that if the Church 
of Rome is a Church of Promises, the National Church 
is by its nature a Church of Compromises, he gave 
Liverpool its Dr. Ryle. Other ecclesiastical appoint- 
ments of his may be here enrolled: Dr. Archibald Tait 
to Canterbury, a "sound Churchman" suited to his 
day, of whom his wife playfully reported "he believes 
all Catholic doctrine except the celibacy of the 
clergy;" Dr. Jackson to London; Dr. Lightfoot to Dur- 
ham, gratified by the advent of a scholar; Dr. Atlay 
to Hereford; Dr. Wordsworth to Lincoln; Dr. Thorold 
to Rochester, a prelate who had Mr. Labouchere for 
a brother-in-law and, an only less irrelevance, a con- 
vert to the Koman Catholic Church for his only son; 
Dr. Claughton to St. Albans; Dr. Basil Jones to St. 
David's; Dr. M'Lagan to Lichfield; Dr. Rowley Hill 
L.cfC. 99 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

to Sodor and Man, and Dr. Benson to Truro — the 
future holder of the See of Canterbury. 

To York Deanery Disraeli sent Dr. Purey-Cust; to 
Lichfield Dr. Bickersteth — both of them Archdeacons 
of Buckingham; Dr. Herbert to Hereford; Dr. Stewart 
Perowne to Peterborough; Dr. Burgon to Chichester; 
Dr. Grantham Yorke and Lord A. Compton to Worces- 
ter; Dr. Boyle to Salisbury. To a canonry at St. Paul's 
he presented Dr. Gregory; to a canonry at Oxford, Dr. 
Bright; to a canonry at York, Dr. Forester, of a family 
long known to him. The list, though long, justifies 
itself; and other names might be added in illustra- 
tion of the discretion of Disraeli's nominations : nearly 
all criticized and contested at the time of their 
making; and all alike approved, perhaps only too in- 
discriminately, when death, in this case or that, si- 
lenced the clamor of individual rivalry. 

The memory of a Derby-Disraeli Church appoint- 
ment for which the Chancellor of the Exchequer took 
the moral responsibility in the House of Commons 
was recalled lately (1903) by the death of Lady Har- 
riet Duncombe, an old acquaintance of Disraeli's, in 
her ninety-fourth year. She was Lady Harriet Doug- 
las, daughter of the fifth Marquis of Queensberry, 
When she married the Kev. and Hon. (they used to 
place it "Hon. and Rev." in those days) Augustus 
Duncombe, whose subsequent appointment as Dean 
of York was wrangled over in the House of Commons 
as a purely political one. But if the new Dean did 
not rank as a Father of the Church, he was much 
more than the mere son of a peer who supported the 

100 



PATRONAGE 

Government. No Dean, at the end of a long rule, 
was ever so popular in York; and having inherited, 
though a younger son, a large fortune from his 
father (there was once a saving Lord Feversham), 
he was able to devote the whole of his stipend as 
Dean to the preservation of the splendid minster's 
fabric. Nor has that great work gone unremembered 
in the bequests of ladies of his family. Disraeli lived 
to see the impugned appointment justified, not only 
by his man's career, but, as nearly always happened 
to him in such cases, by converted public opinion. 
If he sought a more mundane reward, he must have 
found it later in the mere sight of those grand-nieces 
of the Dean, who, at the end of his life, took the 
town with beauty. 

Near to the close of his official life (1877) Lord 
Beaconsfield gave to a clergyman's son an appoint- 
ment over which the customary hue and cry was 
raised. This was a scandal — barefaced, undeniable — 
the removal of Mr. Digby Pigott from the War Office 
to be Comptroller-General of Stationery, with the 
modest salary of £800 a year. For the transfer of a 
civil servant from one department to another he had 
abounding precedents. The grievance lay elsewhere 
— that Mr. Pigott's father had once upon a time been 
Vicar of Hughenden. Mr. John Holms startled Hack- 
ney and the House of Commons with the dark dis- 
covery; and the belief was hinted that the vicar, with 
his family, had "rendered valuable political assistance 
to the Premier." Those were the years of the silence 
of Lord Beaconsfield. He relied on the general good 

101 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

sense and good feeling of the Islanders — sometimes, 
as now for a moment, in vain. The opposition mus- 
tered, and in a House at less than half power on the 
Government side, the appointment of Mr. Digby 
Pigott was censured by 156 against 152 votes — a hos- 
tile majority of four. The new Comptroller resigned; 
but Lord Beaconsfleld refused to let him go. The 
case was now one of personal justice; and he could 
not let the folly of the Commons interfere. The House 
of Lords now became the scene of the farce; and there 
one actor invested it at once with dignity. Answer- 
ing the suggestion (enforced by the vote of many men 
who had dispensed public patronage to their sons, 
brothers, and nephews and cousins) that this promo- 
tion had been controlled by private family friendship, 
Lord Beaconsfleld was able to say that Mr. Digby 
Pigott had been recommended for the post by an old 
public office hand. 

"I do not know Mr. Digby Pigott," the Premier 
added, "even by sight. Thirty years ago there was 
a vicar in my parish of the name of Pigott, and he 
certainly was the father of Mr. Digby Pigott. Shortly 
after I went to that property, Mr. Pigott resigned his 
living and went to a distant county. With regard to 
our intimate friendship and his electioneering assist- 
ance, all I know of his interference in county elections 
is that before he departed from the County of Buck- 
ingham he registered a vote against me." 

The comedy was at an end: "the defense was com- 
plete," acknowledged the Daily News. But it was one 
of the many comedies in which Disraeli played, but 

102 



A CONSTITUTIONAL PRELATE 

was not the comedian, and for which our Islanders, 
the most easily amused in the world, looking back- 
ward, can find no laugh. 

To Dr. Ryle, on his appointment as Bishop 
of Liverpool: "I think, sir, you have a good con- 
AConstitu- stitution." 

tionai Prelate. j^ earlier days, Disraeli set forth with 
biting satire the motives governing the choice of 
the bishops: "It began to be discerned that the 
time had gone by for bishoprics to serve as appanages 
for the younger sons of great families. The Arch- 
Mediocrity [Peel] who then governed this country 
was impressed with the necessity of reconstructing 
the Episcopal Bench on principles of personal dis- 
tinction and ability. But his notion of clerical capac- 
ity did not soar higher than a private tutor who had 
suckled a young noble into university honors; and his 
test of priestly celebrity was the decent editorship 
of a Greek play. He sought for the successors of the 
Apostles, for the stewards of the mysteries of Sinai 
and of Calvary, among third-rate hunters after 
syllables." 

By the time Disraeli became himself a bishop- 
maker, he knew that local demands, advanced 
through political channels, must carry the day. 
Hence a Low Churchman must go to Liverpool, a city 
represented in Parliament and in this nomination by 
his colleague. Lord Sandon. 

The making of a bishop, even of a bishop who 
does not fully accept the mystic significance of the 

103 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

rites he retains, must nevertheless be in some sense 
an affair of mystery, so that a very candid relation 
of this Liverpool bishop's experiences, made by him- 
self, bears repetition. "My life," the late Dr. Ryle 
said, "has been a very curious one. I was not brought 
up for the Church. The last thing I should have ex- 
pected was that I should ever be a clergyman. My 
father was a wealthy man. He was a landed pro- 
prietor and a banker; I was the eldest son, and looked 
forward to inheriting a large fortune. I was on the 
point of entering Parliament. I had all these things 
before me till I was twenty-five; but it then pleased 
God to alter my prospects in life through my father's 
bankruptcy." The father, one supposes (and possibly 
the creditors), would have preferred some other man- 
ifestation of the son's vocation. Moreover, the epi- 
sode puts Dr. Ryle where he would have felt least 
comfortable — in line with Manning and Newman,, 
both of whose fathers, by their business failures, de- 
termined the clerical career for their sons. The 
Bishop continues: "I never thought that a man who 
had taken such a decided stand as a Protestant clergy- 
man, as an Evangelical clergyman, would ever be 
called upon by the Prime Minister to take a different 
position. I always thought the quiet men, those who 
won't kick up a row, those who could be trusted to 
go quietly and gently, were chosen. But, as you are 
aware, I was offered by Lord Beaconsfield the deanery 
of Salisbury. I did not like it at all. I went to Salis- 
bury, and the more I looked at it the less I liked it. 
I felt like a dog with his tail between his legs. But 

104 



A CONSTITUTIONAL PRELATE 

although I did not feel comfortable, I felt that it was 
my duty to go. But I was suddenly relieved by a tele- 
gram from Lord Beaconsfleld's secretary asking me 
to go to London for an interview on a very important 
matter. I felt it my duty to go, and I saw Lord San- 
don, the member for Liverpool, who told me they had 
sent for me for the simple purpose of asking me 
whether I would accept the bishopric of Liverpool. 
I said: 'I am not so young as some people. I am 
not a wealthy man to take a new bishopric' He re- 
plied : 'We know all that ; we have made up our minds 
about that; the question is. Will you take the bish- 
opric of Liverpool or not?' I said: 'My lord, I will 
go.' I thought it was a clear, plain call of duty. I 
would much rather wear out as Bishop of Liverpool 
than rust out as Dean of Salisbury. Well, I asked 
Lord Sandon several questions, which he answered, 
and, this ended, I was taken into Lord Beaconsfleld, 
who gave me an interview, kind and courteous as one 
would expect from that wonderful statesman. He 
gave me excellent advice, which I hope I shall never 
forget. I told him I was not so young as I used to be, 
I did not get younger. He took a good look at me 
from head to foot," — and said the words which begin 
the paragraph, "I think, sir, you have a good consti- 
tution." 

A great statesman's first thought, Disraeli once 
said, must be for the health of the people; and, in 
this case, he evidently took comfort in the strength 
of the people's Bishop. The words, spoken in 1880, 
were amply verified by the duration and the energy 

105 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

of Dr. Kyle's episcopal career. In this case, a Bishop 
bred a Bishop; the constitutional Bishop at Liver- 
pool has supplied an equally energetic prelacy to 
Winchester — a double event, duly noted, one hopes, 
as a double consolation to the creditors, and their 
descendants, if such there be, under the bankruptcy 
that brought it all about. This digression is one that 
leads us back again into the broad Disraelian path; 
and there you say, what Stevenson had the luck to 
say when he came out of arid rocky country on to the 
Pacific slope of woods and streams: "It is like meet- 
ing your wife." Most of all, in presence of Disraeli, 
even when sententious, does one become sensitive to 
the comicality of other men's conventions. 

Disraeli, among other ancient courtesies, retained 
to the last this use of "Sir" in conversation, especially 
with ecclesiastics. When he made Lothair address 
Cardinal Grandison with a "Sir" (as he himself ad- 
dressed Cardinal Manning in speech with him), he was 
lectured in some quarters for a lapse from the "My 
lord" and the "Your Eminence." Disraeli meant, 
and Manning suffered, no derogation. Kings and 
princes are "Sirs" by right — Cardinals are princes of 
the Church; and St. John addressed an angel, "Sir, 
thou knowest": one title let us welcome as held in 
common by a heavenly spirit and the loin of Old Eng- 
land's beef. 

"Eemember, Mr. Dean, no dogmas, no deans" — a 
reminder addressed to Dean Stanley, who made the 
most of his "breadth" to Disraeli, thinking, but quite 

106 



"PEACE WITH HONOR" 

mistakenly, that this would please him. Disraeli's 
own feelings about ceremonies and dogmatic teaching 
A Greater were again and again expressed. "What 
that Includes you Call forms and ceremonies," said Mr. 

Si Less 

Lys, the clergyman in Sybil^ who has all 
the sympathy of his creator, "represent the devo- 
tional instincts of our nature"; and, speaking boldly 
for himself at Manchester in 1872, he said: 

"I would wish Churchmen, and especially the 
clergy, always to remember that in our Father's house 
there are many mansions; and I believe that this com- 
prehensive spirit is perfectly consistent with the 
maintenance of formularies and the belief in dogmas, 
without which, I hold, no practical religion can 
exist." 

No, nor Deans either. 

At the dinner-table of the Duke and Duchess of 
Sutherland, after the close of the Berlin Conference: 
"'Peacewith "When I first went into Bismarck's cab- 
Honor." inet, his favorite dog rose, wagged his 
tail, and licked my hand. When Prince Gortschakoff 
came in, the discerning creature recognized the bear 
and nearly made an end of him." 

Bismarck agreed with his dog. In these private 
talks the two men found themselves in accord, not 
merely on the necessity for "strong governments," but 
on a good many personal appreciations. If Lord 
Beaconsfield, with incautious detail, predicted that 
Gladstone would die in a monastery or a madhouse, 
Bismarck also fell into "the most gratuitous form of 

107 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

human error" by prophesying that, when politically 
played out, Gladstone would make a new stir by 
^'going over" to Rome, and, if he were a widower,, 
would yet be heard of as the most reactionary member 
of the College of Cardinals. In the Conversations Bis- 
marck — the Carlyle of practical politics — is reported 
as saying: "I repeatedly had Lord Beaconsfield to 
spend the evening with me during the Berlin Con- 
gress. As he was unwell, he only came on condition 
of being alone, and I thus had many an opportunity of 
getting to know him well. I must say that in spite 
of his fantastic novel-writing, he is a capable states- 
man, far above Gortschakoff and many others. It was 
easy to transact business with him. In a quarter of 
an hour you knew exactly how you stood with him; 
the limits to which he was prepared to go were clearly 
defined, and a rapid summary soon defined matters. 
Beaconsfield speaks magnificent and melodious Eng- 
lish, and has a good voice. He spoke nothing but 
English at the Congress. The Crown Princess asked 
me about this time whether Beaconsfield did not 
speak French very beautifully. I answered that I 
had not heard anything of it till then. 'But in the 
Congress?' she inquired further. 'He only speaks 
English,' said I." 

To a friend who congratulated him on his 
"Peace with Honor" triumph "Yes; but it has come 
too late." As Sir Stafford Northcote afterward 
said of his attitude at this period of his life: "His 
heart was in the sepulcher of his wife at Hugh- 
enden." 

108 



THE GOLDEN WREATH 

Needless to say, Lord Beaeonsfield did not origi- 
nate the "Peace with Honor" phrase. It was when 
Burke moved his resolution for conciliation with the 
American colonies that he said: "The superior Power 
may offer peace with honor." Whether Lord Beacons- 
field had that phrase in mind, or coined it afresh, as 
a multitude of tongues must have coined it before 
Burke and since, scarcely matters. 

"Oh, it is age that tires me." Lord Beaeonsfield 
retorted thus in Berlin when Lord Odo Kussell ex- 
pressed the fear that the Congress was very fatiguing. 
Lord Odo Russell was a convert to the power and 
spirit of Lord Beaeonsfield as a diplomatist, no less 
than was Bismarck. He agreed when the German 
Chancellor said of Lord Beaeonsfield: "He has won- 
derful presence of mind; is versatile and energetic; 
lets nothing excite him; and has admirably defended 
his cause," Not long after the Congress, Bismarck, 
in his private cabinet, pointed out three portraits to 
a visitor. "There," he said, "hangs the portrait of my 
sovereign; there on the right, that of my wife; there 
on the left, that of Lord Beaeonsfield." After the 
death of Lord Beaeonsfield, Bismarck telegraphed to 
Lord Rowton, whose acquaintance he made during 
the Congress, a true expression of sympathy and 
regret. 

"You have now got what you desired." So said 
Lord Beaeonsfield, one August afternoon in 1879, to 
a venerable-looking man who accosted him in Bond 
Street and introduced himself as "the unfortunate 

109 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

Tracy Turnerelli." The Chief, in those troubled times, 
challenged in the street by an ordinary stranger, 
The Golden would hardly have delayed to parley; the 
Wreath. secretary, on whose arm he leant, would 

have lingered, if he must, to bandy words. But Tracy 
Turnerelli was no ordinary man. He looked so like a 
philanthropist that he had an actor's interest and an 
actor's sincerity in playing the part. The son of an 
Anglicized Italian sculptor of some eminence, he had 
lived among artists; and his travels had not cured 
him of an inveterate habit of self-advertisement, any 
more than his marriage with a Hankey had warned 
him from adventures which earned him the added 
sobriquet of Pankey. In common with the rest of the 
world, I laughed at his golden wreath; then, after a 
talk with him, I mourned the rather. He was so plau- 
sible, that he perforce deceived himself; his facts 
would not bear to be faced, nor his figures to be 
checked. The tinsel golden wreath which he devised 
for Lord Beaconsfleld's acceptance, as the "People's 
Tribute" of fifty-two thousand pennies, might lead, 
somebody suggested, to the minister's impeachment 
for traitorous assumption of a crown. On that tan- 
gent, the impulsive Tracy would tear away: would 
write letters, consult lawyers, imagine himself 
brought to the block, and dare it; forgetting, the 
while, the real obstacles which he himself, hardly 
witting what he did, had laid across his own primrose 
path. These were set forth with a precision which I, 
who knew the old man, a little winced under, but 
perhaps he hardly at all : , 

110 




No. 10 DOWNING STREET, WHITEHALL. 
Disraeli's official residence, 1874-1880. 



THE GOLDEN WREATH 

"10, Downing Street, Whitehall, 
" June 16th, 1879. 

"Sir: Lord Beaconsfleld desires me to inform you 
that he has received and carefully considered your 
letter of the 8th inst., in which you ask him to name 
a day for the presentation of a laurel wreath procured 
by the contributions of upward of fifty thousand of 
the people, which have been collected, according to 
your statement, with 'immense labor and never-yet- 
exampled efforts.' His lordship has, moreover, had 
before him the correspondence which during the last 
five years you have addressed to him, and he notices 
especially your complaint that your services have re- 
ceived no recognition at the hands of the leaders of 
the Conservative party, and the expression of your 
hope that 'sooner or later they will meet with reward.' 
Although Lord Beaconsfield would fully appreciate 
and value a spontaneous gift from his fellow-subjecta 
belonging to a class in which he has ever taken the 
warmest interest, he can not but feel that, being him- 
self intimately connected with honors and rewards^ 
he is precluded by the spirit in which you have pre- 
viously addressed him from accepting a gift thus orig- 
inated, and proffered in a manner which he can not 
deem satisfactory. I have the honor to be, sir, your 
obedient servant, 

"Algernon Turnor." 

Tracy Turnerelli was not crushed: he had un- 
bounded elasticity. Now he had exposed himself as 
the much misunderstood as well as much unappreci- 
ated laborer called to martyrdom, instead of merited 
reward. Reward — there was the rub. A couple of 
months passed thus, when the neglected man met the 

111 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

Minister face to face. His own account needs to be 
supplemented, perhaps, by some such leading speech 
as "The only reward I wanted was a friendly shake 
of the hand," provoking the reply of Lord Beacons- 
field, already quoted: "You have now got what you 
desired." 

"These words were addressed to me yesterday 
afternoon, by Lord Beaconsfleld, between 5 and 6 p.m. 
Had they been addressed to me, as I hoped, at the 
Crystal Palace" (where the wreath had been exhib- 
ited), "or even in Downing Street, in the presence of 
the Press, I should have been satisfied, and have re- 
quired no more from the Premier. But they were ad- 
dressed to me on the pavement of Bond Street. I was 
coming from Hunt & Roskell's when a gentlemanly 
looking old man, leaning on the arm of a younger 
man, passed me. I had never before seen Lord Bea- 
consfleld, but I saw at a glance it was he. I bowed 
to him. He returned my bow. 'May I have the pleas- 
ure of shaking hands with you, my lord,' I said. 'I am 
the unfortunate Tracy Turnerelli!' His lordship 
shook hands with me coMially — well he might — add- 
ing the above words: 'You have now got what you 
desired.' I did desire that; but I desired more — it was 
publicly for the Premier to tell the nation I had served 
him and the country. As I am a gentleman, I re- 
peated my bow and walked on; for the streets are not 
the place for anything but civilities; but elsewhere I 
would have added, 'I want more, my lord, justice! that 
justice I have asked of your lordship, of the Prince 
and Princess of Wales, of the Queen, and which, in a 

112 



"BEACON" NOT "BECKON" 

month, on a hundred platforms, if I live and health 
permits, I intend, after my summer holiday, to ask 
of the people.' Will his lordship prevent me by act- 
ing fairly toward me before the session is over? I 
know not. But, whatever I write and whatever I say, 
I trust his lordship will not forget I treated him as 
a Christian gentleman should do — shook hands with 
him, in spite of the injury he has done me — and look 
to him to act in the same way to me, even when pain- 
ful words are being written and uttered." 

So, by degrees, the golden wreath — which Tracy 
Turnerelli tried on — went the way of all flesh — to 
Madame Tussaud's! 

"Not Beconsfleld, but Beaconsfield." By one of 
life's little ironies, in giving up the mispronounced 
^'Beacon," not name Disraeli, a name by which his 
"Beckon." race was to be "for ever recognized," he 
alighted on a title that, in sound, was equally 
equivocal. In common with most of his country- 
men, Lord Rosebery spoke of i?econsfield (and 
indeed old maps, no less than the local and gen- 
eral pronunciation, have it Bekonsfleld and Becens- 
field, in allusion to beeches and not to beacons) when 
he was thus corrected by the husband of Lady Bea- 
consfield, she herself Joining in. "I assure you," Lord 
Rosebery has said, "I was impressed by those persons 
with a creed which will leave me only with life, that 
the pronunciation is Beaconsfield, not Beconsfield; and 
it would afterward have required more courage than 
I possess to address Lady Beaconsfield as Lady 
9 113 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

Beconsfield or Lord Beaconsfield as Lord Becons- 
field." 

"Statesmanship inspires interest longer than most 
things. I have seen Metternich in love: some thought 
The Ruling it sublime : I thought it absurd. But I 
Passion. f^n ^j^g greatest reverence for him as a 

statesman to the last." 

Metternich, the Austrian Premier, sought refuge 
here from the Eevolution of 1848, and took up his 
abode on Richmond Green, in what Disraeli thought 
"the most charming house in the world." "It was 
called the Old Palace," and had "a long library, gar- 
dens, everything worthy of him. I am enchanted with 
Richmond Green which, strange to say, I don't recol- 
lect ever having visited before, often as I have been 
to Richmond. I should like to let my house and live 
there. It is still and sweet, charming alike in sum- 
mer and winter." In October, 1849, Disraeli received 
from Metternich "a beautiful and affecting farewell 
letter in time to embrace him exactly half an hour 
before he left England." 

The Metternichs' stay at Richmond was not with- 
out an influence on the Disraelis; for, in consequence 
of her brother's enthusiasm, Miss Sara Disraeli set- 
tled in the neighborhood. 

"Your villa is in the heart of the greenland which 
I have so long admired and wished to dwell in. I 
think you will be very happy there,'^ Disraeli wrote 
in 1850, "and I shall probably end my days as your 
neighbor." 

114 



RACE AND THE RACES 

"The British aristocracy, which the multitude 
idealizes, does not idealize, does not even realize, its 
Race and the own status and dignity. The only race^ 
Races. your typical noble reflects upon is that 

run by horses; pedigree and high breeding are con- 
cerns only of cattle; his course of study is the race- 
course; and the highest homage he offers to the 
Church is to call a chase after the steeple. His ken 
is bounded by his kennels; and his vision of England's 
activities is regulated by the number of his tenants 
willing to be puppy-walkers. And all this with can- 
dor. For in country-house charades I notice that 
the housemaid's part is coveted by all the ladies, 
while each of the sons competes for that of the groom. 
And their table-talk is stable-talk." 

Life in a country house was otherwise described 
by him as "a series of meals, mitigated by the new 
dresses of the ladies." 

"I am not disposed for a moment to admit that 
my pedigree is not as good as that of the Cavendishes." 
This was a saying of Disraeli's during the Bucks elec- 
tion of 1847, when a member of the House of Caven- 
dish was also a candidate. 

The great Whig families — an oligarchy he called 
them, with memories of his Venetian ancestry — had 
barred his way to Parliament when he was a young 
man with "no connections." His own descent, he hints 

^ "Race," on tlie contrary, Disraeli held, "is the key of history." In this 
mood he went so far as to say : "Progress and reaction are but words to 
mystify the million. In the structure, the decay, and the development of the 
various families of man, the vicissitudes of history find their main solution : 
all is race." 

115 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

elsewhere, is from Abraham. But a Grey (his op- 
ponent on his first hustings was a son of the Prime 
Minister) — a Grey too can trace, in a general way, 
back to Adam. That is the weak as well as the strong 
point of all pedigree-mongering; and Disraeli, in em- 
phasizing descent in the instance of Jews, Arabs, 
Spanish grandees, and the rest, did so, less to glorify 
them, than to humble the haughty of our Island, our 
"mushroom aristocracy," as he calls it. Families who 
date back a few hundred years in our Island history 
shrank beneath this larger range of vision when Dis- 
raeli the cosmopolitan measured men by universal 
rather than local standards; and, thinking of Roman 
families who were great when Osesar conquered 
Britain, but when the ancestors of the Stanleys were 
woad-painted savages, closed Debrett, after studying 
it for what it was worth, with a shrug of the shoul- 
ders and a reflection. If Stanley, with a recorded an- 
cestor of a thousand years ago, was to be set above 
a Lord Mowbray (of Dizzy's own creation in Sybil), 
with a recorded ancestor of only a century or two 
ago, how much above a Stanl\ must be set an Orien- 
tal with a recorded ancestry of, say, two thousand 
years. Yet a Stanley thought nothing of a Fakredeen. 
The deduction may be either one of two : it may level 
up or may level down. With many a slash, here at 
the family tree, there at the national hedge that en- 
closes and stifles it, Disraeli was still indulging his 
old hobby — a detestation of the Whigs. No doubt it 
was his want of success in destroying at the polls the 
prestige of the Whig families that made him scruti- 

116 



RACE AND THE RACES 

nize their credentials, and banter those who were 
swayed by them: a Jack Straw might be hanged, he 
said (with a finger turned to Lord John Russell), while 
a Lord John Straw became a Minister in England. 

Vivian Grey did not consider these things: but be- 
tween the date of that book and the date of Coningshy, 
Sybil, and the rest, Disraeli had unsuccessfully meas- 
ured his strength, as man to man, against that of 
Colonel Grey, Lord Grey's third son, remembered now 
by what he later became — Queen Victoria's secretary 
and the editor of The Early Life of the Prince Consort. 

"Ancient lineage," said Millbank, taking the 
phrase from Coningsby's lips — "I never heard of a 
peer with an ancient lineage. The real old families of 
this country are to be found among the peasantry" — 
(Mr. Thomas Hardy has at least one personal note in 
his novels in harmony with Disraeli's); "the gentry 
too may lay some claim to old blood. But a peer with 
an ancient lineage is to me quite a novelty. No, no; 
the thirty years of the Wars of the Roses freed us 
from those gentlemen. I take it after the Battle of 
Tewkesbury a baron was almost as rare a being in 
England as a wolf." 

And when Coningsby self-defendingly says: "I 
have always understood that our peerage was the 
finest in Europe," that ninepin is put up for the pleas- 
ure of Disraeli in knocking it down. 

"From themselves," said Mr. Millbank, "and the 
heralds they pay to paint their carriages? But I go 
to facts. When Henry VII called his first Parliament, 
there were only twenty-nine temporal peers to be 

117 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

found, and even some of these took their seats 
illegally, for they had been attained. Of those 
twenty-nine not five remain, and they, as the Howards 
for instance, are not Norman nobility. We owe the 
English peerage to three sources: the spoliation of 
the Church; the open and flagrant sale of honors by 
the elder Stuarts; and the borough-mongering of our 
own times. Those are the three main sources of the 
existing peerage of England, and, in my opinion, dis- 
graceful ones." 

And again: "They adopted Norman manners" 
(one recalls "Batavian grace") "while they usurped 
Norman titles," without either Norman rights or Nor- 
man duties, for "They did not conquer the land, nor 
do they defend it." Sybil tells the same tale, and gives 
it in one sentence a new turn: "There is no longer, 
in fact, an aristocracy in England, for the superiority 
of the animal is an essential quality of aristocracy." 

To Cardinal Manning: "Yes, I believe in grace 
as I believe in fortune; and that we get just as much 
Grace and ^s we have earned for ourselves in past 
their Graces, existences, or as others have earned for 
us in past eras. Is not our theory of an hereditary 
monarchy and Upper House of Parliament in some 
blind popular way a witness to this belief? The 
Church has her apostolic procession: the world its 
hereditary honors: each conferred out of the store- 
house of the past. And I always have that idea at 
the back of my mind when I say ^Your Grace' to a 
duke!" 

118 



OF MEN AND BOOKS 

To an author, presenting an impossible book: 
^'Many thanks: I shall lose no time in reading it." 
Of Men and This ambiguity, fathered upon Disraeli, 
Books. might very well be his; and if there is 

as little evidence of the paternity as that which some- 
times satisfies a magistrate of sentiment, we can say 
^^Ben trovato" in all truth. For clean neatness the 
phrase has the advantage of that formula which 
Oliver Wendell Holmes puts into the mouth of "the 
Master," who, after a few flattering adjectives about 
a presentation volume, added: "I am lying under a 
sense of obligation." 

To Henry Cowper: "I delight in Pride and Preju- 
dice, and have read it seventeen times." Who would 
question the simple second-decade figure of a Chan- 
cellor of the Exchequer? Anyway, if he read the book 
seven times, he made amends, say, for Charlotte 
Bronte's failure to have read it even once when she 
wrote her criticisms of Jane Austen. The doctrine 
of the Church which credits the superfluous merits of 
the saints to the account of repentant sinners has its 
comforting application to the reading of good works 
of fiction; so that whenever I meet a friend, whose lit- 
erary soul is my solicitude, and who has not read 
Prince Otto, or has read it only once perfunctorily, I 
go home and read it yet again, offering vicari- 
ously my friend's homage to the ghost of Steven- 
son, and never wearying in that work of supereroga- 
tion. 

"They think it the Battle of Armageddon; let us 
go to lunch." This is said to a congenial friend, a 

119 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

poet, after a crucial division at the club on some ex- 
citing trifle of internal politics. 

After reading Coventry Patmore's Anti-Reform 
Bill lines beginning "When the false English nobles 
and their Jew." 

"I collapse. If the poets are against me, I give 
up; for behind the poets are ranged the young men.^ 
Yet the main difference between this mystic and my- 
self is one of Islands. I live in Britain; Patmore in 
Patmos." 

Mr. Coventry Patmore's father also had been a 
severe critic of Disraeli forty years earlier — see 
his hostile notice of Contarini Fleming in the Court 
Circular. Beckford's praise of the book was a com- 
pensation at the time (May, 1832): "This really con- 
soles me for Mr. Patmore." If Mr. Coventry Patmore 
had no liking for the Liberalism of Disraeli, words 
falter before any description of his detestation of Mr. 
Gladstone's. I remember that when I was a guest 
of the poet at the Manor House, Hastings, a visit of 
Mr. Gladstone to the town was bruited abroad; where- 
upon the Patmore servants were, with grim humor, 
forbidden to go into the tainted streets where they 
might encounter the leper of politics. When Patmore 
was the last opponent left of "popular government" 
in England, he made the best of a bad job, and had 
such consolation as is expressed in a little verse, ad- 
dressed to a lady who permits me the privilege of 
putting it into print: 

^ "Poets," says one of his characters, "are the unacknowledged legislators 
of the world." 

120 



OF MEN AND BOOKS 

To (Seeking to make me a Radicaii). 

Dear, either' s creed one hope foretells ; 

Mine waits ; yours, kindlier, hastes. 
But what to us are principles 

Who are one in Tory tastes ? 
Bear in your hat what badge you may— 

The Red Republic's even — 
So all your lovely ways obey 

The Monarchy of Heaven. 

To Sir William Fraser, who had lost his seat in 
Parliament (in 1853): "You have now but one thing 
left in life — a course of Balzac." 

From Sir William Fraser's Disraeli and his Day: 
"I was the last person with whom Disraeli conversed 
in the Carlton Club. He seldom came there. I on 
that day went up to speak to him — a thing I rarely 
did. He was standing in the middle of the morning- 
room, looking vacantly around; I said to him: 'I know 
you wish some one to speak to you.' He said: ^I am 
very much obliged to you. I am so blind; I come 
here; I look round; I see no one; I go away.' I said 
to him: ^You told me many years ago, when I first 
lost my seat, that I ought to go through a course of 
Balzac. I have been very ill lately; I have been going 
through a course of Beaconsfield.' He paused a mo- 
ment, to consider what he should say that was civil; 
and then: 'I am glad to have had so appreciative a 
reader.' I said: 'I hope you have got a good sum for 
the last edition,' 'Which is that?' 'A very gorgeous 
one; in brown cloth, gilt: called "The Beaconsfield 
Edition." ' 'I must inquire about that.' 'I should 

121 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

have liked very much to have gone through the char- 
acters of your early novels with you; but I never liked 
to trouble you.' 'They were not portraits: they were 
photographs.' Tardon me, but surely they were not 
photographs which gave every trait of the individual; 
they were idealized portraits.' 'Yes, you are quite 
right: that is the correct term — idealized portraits.' 
^There is a man in this room at this moment whom 
you mention by name in the first chapter of Vivian 
Grey.' 'Is there?' said Disraeli in a deep voice, look- 
ing round. 'Where?' 'That fat man, with a red face, 
fast asleep in the armchair.' Disraeli gazed at the 
individual, and then said: 'Who is he?' 'His name 
is Appleyard.' Disraeli uttered one of those oracular 
and depreciatory grunts which were frequent with 
him when he wished not to express an articulate 
opinion." 

Sir William Fraser, whose jestings were not al- 
ways convenient as to time, subject, or place, and 
whose executor found himself burdened with unbar- 
gained-for responsibilities, then proceeded to tell 
Lord Beaconsfield a story that was broad as well as 
long — two intrusions that Disraeli hated. A propos, 
another member of the Carlton Club, who knew Dis- 
raeli well, writes to me: "The Chief never told a vul- 
gar story in his life, and always shuffled nervously 
when he had — as of course he often had — to hear one. 
He was no prude; but dirty puddles had no hold on 
one whose mental vision was that of a clean sea. He 
loathed levity about the only serious and mysterious 
thing we really know — the Body. He faced the facts 

122 



OF MEN AND BOOKS 

of life, physiological and spiritual, gravely, I had al- 
most said sorrowfully; he faced them compassion- 
ately. I have seen him maneuver and dodge to escape 
bores, but particularly dirty bores. As in his writings, 
so in his conversation, he was without spot and with- 
out reproach. You had not the feeling that he was 
fighting his nature and flattering his conscience by 
his correctness. You felt instinctively that nothing 
else was worth his while." 

That, however, was not Sir William Eraser's ap- 
preciation. There were some things beyond his view 
— even the simplest working of the law of cause and 
effect; after that conversation Lord Beaconsfleld 
came to the club no more. 

At a house-party at the Duke of Bedford's at 
Woburn in the late 'seventies. Dr. Jowett, who was 
of the company, and who had at least a Benjamin in 
common with his fellow-guest, reports that Disraeli 
^'regretted the new translation of the Scriptures, 
which could have no authority and would disturb 
many consecrated phrases; but thought very highly 
of Kenan's Evangiles, and praised his book on Solo- 
mon's Song. Wished for a new book on Ecclesiastes. 
He told Mr. Cowper that he first turned his thoughts 
to politics when in quarantine at Malta for forty-two 
days. The Consul had sent him two years' GalignanVs 
to read, and from that time he began to understand 
politics." 

Details in nearly all such reported conversations 
fail in accuracy when tested. Disraeli was in Gibral- 
tar August 9, 1830, and wrote thence to his sister 

123 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

"Sa," thanking her for her "most welcome" and 
"most sweet" letter, and saying that "the Mediter- 
ranean packet is hourly expected." By it he went to 
Malta, writing thence to his father from the lazaretto 
on August 25: "We are free to-morrow." The 
journey and the quarantine together took, therefore, 
only seventeen days. He had then been only two 
months away from home, and two months' Galignani^s, 
rather than two years', was probably the Consul's 
allowance; particularly as Disraeli had been an eager 
newspaper reader at home, and had written a few days 
earlier from Gibraltar, "I see all newspapers sooner 
or later." He does not, in his detailed letters, men- 
tion any new light on public affairs as having come 
to him in his few days' detention, and his "under- 
standing" of English politics had been already ex- 
hibited in the pages of Vivian Grey. At each important 
stage of his journey, where newspapers met him, he 
eagerly read the arrears. From Athens toward the 
close of this year (1830) he wrote: "I have just got a 
pile of papers"; from Constantinople in the January 
following: "I have just got through a pile of Galign- 
am's"; from Cairo, on the last day of May, 1831, he 
exclaims over "the wonderful news" (about the Re- 
form movement) "which meets me here in a pile of 
Galignani^s^^ — the most exciting budget that he ever 
received, and one to which he might very probably 
make allusions long afterward in his talk, though not 
in the sense reported here. 

Asked at a dinner-party if he had read Daniel 
Deronda: "When I want to read a novel, I write one.'^ 

124 



OF MEN AND BOOKS 

A clergyman, having bungled into Lady Howard's 
garden-party at Craven Cottage, Fulham, instead of 
the Bishop of London's next door, lingered in the mun- 
dane crowd. Disraeli said: "Obviously a casuist. 
Having come in by error he feels no obligation to 
retire." 

Craven Cottage had interesting Disraeli associa- 
tions. It is introduced by name into the pages of 
Tancred. Thither goes the hero to his first breakfast 
with Mrs. Guy Flouncey: 

"He rather liked it. The scene, lawns and groves, 
and a glancing river, the music, our beautiful country- 
women, who with their brilliant complexions and 
bright bonnets do not shrink from daylight, make 
a morning festival very agreeable, even if one be 
dreaming of Jerusalem." 

Craven Cottage was the creation of the Margra- 
vine of Anspach when married to Lord Craven. After 
them came Bulwer, who describes it in Ernest 
Maltravers. Indeed, that book, and its sequel, Alice, 
were written within its narrow country4n-town 
enclosures. 

To Sir William Harcourt (at Hughenden): "The 
literary movement has left me behind. I learn from 
two young men who came here from Oxford the other 
day that Byron is no longer regarded for his poetry, 
only for his sublimity of soul." 

If Disraeli did not, like Tennyson, go out and cut on 
a tree "Byron is dead," he none the less came with- 
in the glamour of that Byron's influence and legend 
which was a reaction from the convention, the stodgi- 

125 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

ness, the mock modesty, which Byron's reckless can- 
dor brushed away. If he, too, canted, he canted 
against cant. With all his failings he was a deliverer; 
and this perhaps is what Young Oxford meant to 
say. Disraeli, in Venetia, where he makes him a sort 
of wayward idol, shows how strong a hold Byron had 
over his imagination — over the imagination of all 
that generation. And, years earlier, in Vivian Grey, 
he had put into the mouth of Cleveland this estimate : 

"If anything were more characteristic of Byron's 
mind than another, it was his strong, shrewd common- 
sense, his pure unalloyed sagacity. The loss of Byron 
can never be retrieved. He was indeed a real man; 
and when I say this, I award him the most splendid 
character which human nature need aspire to. At 
least I, for my part, have no desire to be considered 
either a divinity or an angel; and truly, when I look 
round upon the creatures alike effeminate in mind 
and body of which the world is, in general, composed, 
I fear that even that ambition is too exalted. Byron's 
mind was, like his own ocean, sublime in its yeasty 
madness, beautiful in its glittering summer bright- 
ness, mighty in the lone magnificence of its waste of 
waters, gazed upon from the magic of its own nature; 
yet capable of representing, but as in a glass darkly, 
the natures of all others." 

Moreover, in Coningshy Byron is labeled "greater 
even as a man than as a writer." This surely must 
have been the very send-off of that movement which 
he said left him behind when he heard Young Oxford 
re-echoing Disraeli the Younger. 

126 



IN THE HOUSEHOLD 

To the guests at country-houses as a mild catch: 
"Who wrote 'Small by degrees, and beautifully 
less?' " Few replied Prior; and fewer pointed out the 
substitution of "small" for the "fine" of the poet. 
John, seventh Duke of Eutland, says: "I remember 
perfectly fifty years ago Disraeli put that question 
at my father's house at Belvoir and floored us all." 

To Sir William Fraser, who tried to draw him 
about caricatures and their effects on a man's public 
life: " In these days every one's object is to be made 
ridiculous." 

"We live by admiration" less than by advertising. 
Even a minister who delivers a speech or an author 
who produces a novel must take the consequence of 
his name's access of notoriety. After the issue of 
Endymion, Lord Beaconsfield said to a friend: "It is 
a strange thing, but acquaintances keep calling at 
the house and asking after me, as if I had had a baby." 

He said in his later and very lonely days: "My 
friends send me many books. I don't know which 
profit me most — those that keep me awake at night 
or those that send me to sleep." 

A secretary sharply scolded a servant in the 
presence of Lord Beaconsfield, who, when the servant 
In the had withdrawn, shrugged deprecating 

Household. shoulders. "Oh, but he is such an idiot," 
pleaded the secretary. Lord B.: "Has it never oc- 
curred to you that if he was not an idiot he would not 
be a servant?" 

To Henry Cowper, at Woburn, Disraeli said of one 

127 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

of Captain Burnaby's books that lie could not forgive 
its wretched sketch of English servants abroad. 

"Ah," said Cowper, "he did not manage that so 
well as you did in Tancred^ 

"I see," was the reply, "that you have lately been 
reading that work. I myself am in the habit of re- 
curring to it, when I wish to renew my knowledge of 
the East." 

Those servants in Tancred are numbered among 
our friends. Freeman and Trueman had been told 
off with Eoby and the rest to accompany Tancred, 
Lord Montacute, to Palestine. For them, indeed, the 
West was West and the East was East — they took 
their national prejudices as well as their forks with 
them; and Disraeli in his sallies recognizes that they 
are kith and kin with all their race: 

" And the most curious thing,' said Freeman to 
Trueman, as they established themselves under a pine- 
tree, with an ample portion of roast meat, and armed 
with their traveling knives and forks — 'and the most 
curious thing is, that they say these people are 
Christians. Who ever heard of Christians wearing 
turbans?' 'Or eating without knives and forks?' 
added Trueman." 

And then Disraeli thrusts at the tourist's self-com- 
placency in ignorance: 

" 'It would astonish their weak minds in the stew- 
ard's room at Bellamont, if they could see all this, 
John,' said Mr. Freeman pensively. A man who 
travels has very great advantages.' And very great 
hardships too,' said Trueman. 'I don't care for work, 

128 



AT HUGHENDEN CHURCH 

but I do like to have my meals regular.' 'You are 
thinking if anything were to happen to either of us 
in this heathen land, where we should get Christian 
burial?' ''Lord love you, Mr. Freeman, no I wasn't. 
I was thinking of a glass of ale.' 'One wants consola- 
tion, John, sometimes — one does, indeed; and, for my 
part, I do miss the family prayers and the home- 
brewed.' " 

Again the faithful retainers, seeing Lord Monta- 
cute's devotion to an Eastern lady and an Eastern 
chief, re-echo the set opinions of the classes; nor does 
Disraeli fail of one shaft directed against the legisla- 
ture itself: 

" 'It is much better than monks and hermits [Free- 
man says], and low people of that sort, who are not 
by no means fit company for somebody I could men- 
tion, and might turn him into a papist into the bar- 
gain.' 'That would be a bad business,' said Trueman; 
'my lady could never abide that. It would be better 
that he should turn Turk.' 'I am not sure it wouldn't,' 
said Mr. Freeman. 'It would be in a manner more con- 
stitutional. The Sultan of Turkey may send an Am- 
bassador to our Queen, but the Pope of Rome may 
not.'" 

"This Hughenden parish is torn in two by dissen- 
sions. There is civil war between those who support 
At Hughenden the open alms-plate and those who sup- ' 
•Church. pQj.^ ^^Q closed bag." So he said to Sir 

William Harcourt when that young politician, who 
had entered Parliament in order to slay him, became 
10 129 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

his guest. On the way to church on Sunday the host 
(whose sympathies with the Public Worship Regula- 
tion Bill were also Harcourt's) warned his companion 
that echoes of the High Church controversy had 
penetrated even that sylvan retreat. 

"My friend the vicar," said the Lord of the Manor, 
"will take what I call a collection and he calls an 
offertory, and it will be placed on what he calls an 
altar but on what the churchwardens call a table." 

But Disraeli was not always a mere onlooker at 
the rites and ceremonies of his parish church. When 
he died, the vicar, the Rev. H. Blagden, paid him pub- 
lic tribute for his private pieties. "Have we not here 
watched him, even when at the height of his pros- 
perity and power, coming down, simply and humbly, 
Sunday after Sunday, to take his place among us and 
worship God? Do we not remember how we knelt 
side by side with him, only on Christmas Day last at 
your altar, where he received from my hands the 
Blessed Body and Blood of Christ?" 

"How do you contrive to retain your youthful ap- 
pearance and health?" The question was put in the 
, „ street by Lord Beaconsfield to a former 

In Harness. 

colleague, who had retired from public 
life. "By enjoying all the repose I can," was the recipe 
advertised by the rubicund friend. Lord Beacons- 
field's reply was a snort: 

"Repose! good Heavens, repose!" he exclaimed, as 
of a thing impossible in his case, if not absolutely 
cowardly. 

130 



IMPRESSIONS AND PORTRAITS 

To Lord Aberdare, who met Lord Beaconsfield in 

the precincts of the House of Lords shortly after he 

had taken his peerage, and who asked him 

"Gone up." 

how he liked it: "Well, I feel that I am 
dead, but in the Elysian fields." 

"After the Cabinet, the Household." The saying 
was quoted as Disraeli's by politicians who were not 
Impressions Under-secretaries themselves, and there- 
and Portraits. fQj^Q perhaps not unwilling to minimize 
the importance of those who were. 

Of a member of the Government who absented 
himself from a division: "This won't do; he has taken 
the Queen's shilling!" 

He himself was, of all members and ministers, 
one of the most patiently punctual and persevering 
in attendance at debates, committees, and coun- 
cils. 

Of Sir James Graham and Sir John Pakington, of 
whom somebody said to him that their noses had 
a judicial look: "Yes, quarter sessions and petty 
sessions." 

So far back as in 1838, when Sir John Pakington 
(afterward "sent up" — which is sometimes very like 
being "sent down" — as Lord Hampton) made his 
maiden speech, Disraeli saw instantly the sessions 
simile. Pakington, on that occasion, sat next to Dis- 
raeli — the Disraeli who had been obliged to desist 
when making his own deUit, and who thus passed judg- 
ment on his apparently more successful neighbor, 
made perforce his neighbor again, on a future Treas- 

131 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

ury Bench, no other clay being at hand to put into 
shape: 

"Pakington's friends expected a great deal from 
him, and they announce that he quite fulfilled their 
expectations. He was confident, fluent, and common- 
place, and made a good chairman of quarter sessions 
speech. 'It was the best speech that he ever will 
make,' said Sugden, 'and he has been practising it 
before the grand jury for the last twenty years.' 
However, I supported him very zealously, and he went 
to bed thinking he was an orator, and wrote to Mrs. 
Pakington, I've no doubt, to that effect." 

All dull men do not belong to one side of the House 
— the House would have to be enlarged, perhaps 
doubled, if they did. To Sir James Graham, here 
linked with Pakington, though politically severed, 
Disraeli was introduced in 1836 at a dinner where 
they and Peel were fellow-guests of Lord Chandos, 
and where Disraeli (within one year of his senatorship) 
was the only man not in Parliament. Once he got 
there, sparring began; and it was a reference made 
by Disraeli, during his first tenure of office as Chancel- 
lor of Exchequer in 1852, to Sir James Graham as a 
politician whom "I will not say I greatly respect, but 
whom rather I greatly regard," that brought the 
literal Gladstone to his feet with an indignant rebuke : 
"I must tell the right honorable gentleman that he 
is not entitled to say to my right honorable friend the 
member for Carlisle that he regards him but that he 
does not respect him. I must tell the right honorable 
gentleman that whatever he has learned — and he has 

132 



IMPRESSIONS AND PORTRAITS 

learned much — he has not yet learned the limits of 
discretion, of moderation, and of forbearance, that 
ought to restrain the conduct and language of every 
member of this House, the disregard of which is an 
offense in the meanest among us, but is of tenfold 
weight when committed by the Leader of the House 
of Commons." Surely above the accessory cheers 
that greeted these words from the one side and 
the derisive but equally regular cries of derision from 
the other, the inner ear could hear Homeric laugh- 
ter of gods at the Parliamentary tactics of the 
Islanders. 

One element of the natural regard Disraeli felt for 
the politician whom he could not respect may be 
sought perhaps altogether apart from the life of the 
legislature. Disraeli's great liking for the three Sher- 
idan sisters, Lady Seymour, Mrs. Norton, and Mrs. 
Blackwood, is noted on another page; and Graham 
was their uncle — the most "respectable" member of 
the family, they would have said. How often are Par- 
liamentary manners softened by the relations be- 
tween men and the women of their foes! If gentlemen 
of the House ever pay that homage to absent beauty, 
nameless where all else is brawled, the return is si- 
lently made. Diana of the Crossways chose her home 
at Westminster by the woman's instinct to be near a 
massed masculinity: — that Diana who nevertheless 
declared, in a cry of personal anguish: "A woman 
in the pillory restores the original bark of brotherhood 
to mankind." 

To a colleague, who, when staying at Hughenden, 

133 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

proposed a walk: "A walk — impossible: a saunter, if 
you please." 

Lord Eldon, years before, had died regretting three 
errors — the first of which was that he had once 
walked where he might have ridden. Mr. Chamber- 
lain, after Disraeli, avoids walking any distance — 
further, let us say, than across the floor of the House 
of Commons. 

Nevertheless when Lord Stanley (afterward head 
of the Derby-Disraeli Administration) paid his first 
visit to Hughenden in January, 1851 (not a good saun- 
tering month, certainly), Disraeli's own record is as 
follows : 

"Stanley's visit to Hughenden was very agreeable. 
Having no horses" — a proviso which might mollify 
even a Lord Eldon — "we took long walks together — 
one day to Hampden; another to the Abbey. The view 
of Hughenden across the heights is quite marvelous. 
I had never seen it before. We walked to Denver 
Hill and its sylvan neighborhood; and on Sunday, 
after church, we walked on the hills in view of Dash- 
wood's Park, till me got to Westcombe Church." 

Disraeli had then for three years been the unex- 
ploring owner of Hughenden. 

A favorite sentiment of Disraeli's in middle life, 
reported by many friends in slightly varying phrases, 
but best remembered in the form addressed to his 
sister when Lord Stanley in 1851 failed (through faint- 
heartedness) to form a Government: "We can not 
complain of fortune: only of our inveterate imbecility 
which could not avail itself of her abundant favors." 

134 



IMPRESSIONS AND PORTRAITS 

To a friend who congratulated him on his first 
Premiership: "Yes, I have climbed to the top of the 
greasy pole." 

Conversing with Lord Ronald Gower (whom he 
called "dearest" over a cigarette at Hughenden), he 
placed among happiest things "one of those long mid- 
summer days when one dines at nine o'clock." To 
Lord Konald Gower it was that he said of certain 
grave colleagues who took life a little too literally: 
"Mr. W. H.— or is it Mr. H. W.?— Smith" (memorable 
Benjamin!), "or Mr. Secretary Cross, whom I always 
forget to call Sir Richard." 

"He wears his eyeglass like a gentleman." This, 
according to Lobby gossip, was Disraeli's unimpas- 
sioned comment on the first Parliamentary speech of 
Mr. Joseph Chamberlain, who had newly come from 
Birmingham with denunciation of Disraeli upon his 
lips. Disraeli's estimate of one of their number was 
characteristically a much kinder one than Cardinal 
Newman had made upon the Golden Youth of 
Birmingham in general. Dives, said the preacher in 
effect, was a fine gentleman, but, nevertheless, was 
excluded from heaven: 

"This was the fate of your pattern and idol, O ye, 
if any of you be present, young men who, though not 
possessed of wealth and rank, yet affect the fashions 
of those who have them. You, my brethren, have 
not been born splendidly or nobly; you have not been 
brought up in the seats of liberal education; you have 
no high connections; you have not learned the man- 
ners nor caught the tone of good society; you have 

135 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

no share of the largeness of mind, the candor, the 
romantic sense of honor, the correctness of taste, the 
consideration for others, and the gentleness which the 
world puts forth as its highest type of excellence; 
you have not come near the courts or the mansions 
of the great; yet you ape the sin of Dives, while you 
are strangers to his refinement. You think it the sign 
of a gentleman to set yourselves above religion, to 
criticize the religions and professors of religion, to 
look at Catholic and Methodist with impartial con- 
tempt, to gain a smattering of knowledge on a num- 
ber of subjects, to dip into a number of frivolous pub- 
lications, if they are popular, to have read the latest 
novel, to have heard the singer and seen the actor of 
the day, to be well up with the news, to know the 
names and, if so be, the persons of public men, to be 
able to bow to them, to walk up and down the street 
with your heads on high, and to stare at whatever 
meets you; — and to say and do worse things of which 
these outward extravagances are but the symbol. 
And this is what you conceive you have come upon 
earth for! The Creator made you, it seems, O my 
children, for this work and office, to be a bad imitation 
of polished ungodliness, to be a piece of tawdry and 
faded finery, or a scent which has lost its freshness 
and does but offend the sense!" 

If Disraeli, an observer of Newman from of old, 
had read this passage, a point is supplied to the say- 
ing, "5^6 wears his eyeglass like a gentleman." 

To his wife, when disappointed by a Liberal 
Premier's refusal to shorten the Easter and lengthen 

136 



IMPRESSIONS AND PORTRAITS 

the Whitsuntide holidays: "My dear, what can we 
expect from a Government that is not in society?" 

"I have a new phrase for Harcourt." So, toward 
the end of his life, said Disraeli, and said no more. 
The phrase died with him; and we must continue to 
associate the "Hortensius" of Endymion and the 
"Rhodian" combatant in Parliamentary debate, with 
the man for whom all Dizzyites (following Dizzy here 
too) own a particular kindness, since, having gone out 
to slay Goliath, he sat instead in his tent. 

"Love has many long words in its vocabulary: I 
have used them myself in Henrietta Temple and else- 
where. But there are two short words that are often 
missing from it; and their absence makes all the 
others meaningless — the prosaic words, 'here' and 
'now.' Eloquence, both in love and in politics, is often 
an excess of manner to cover a defect of matter — the 
silver cover that conceals the empty dish." 

"There are fools and there are d d fools" — a 

nice (and a nasty) distinction. Lord Robert Montagu, 
one of the younger sons whom Disraeli tried to en- 
courage with minor administrative posts, called forth 
the convenient classification that leaves too little 
doubt as to the denomination in which he himself was 
ranged. But Lord Robert's life had been one long 
provocation. He provoked his Anglican friends and 
lost his Huntingdonshire seat in Parliament by be- 
coming a Catholic; then he returned to the House 
(where he had sat as a Tory) as an Irish member and 
a Home Ruler; then, again, his seat at the Oratory 
and in Parliament were alike vacated; and, after hav- 

137 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

ing defended the Temporal Power as an all but divine 
appanage of the Papacy, he wrote pamphlets to prove 
that the Pope was the Man of Sin and Manning a 
son of per — and se — dition. Even Disraeli's toler- 
ance faltered before a union of violence and vacil- 
lation. 

After the Colenso controversy, the battle of Isan- 
dula, and the death of the Prince Imperial: "The 
Zulus are a wonderful people; they defeat our gen- 
erals, they convert our bishops, and they affix 'finis' 
to the fortunes of a French dynasty." 

Of a certain Lord Chancellor: "Everybody knows 
the stages of a lawyer's career — he tries in turn to get 
on, to get honors, to get honest. This one edits hymns 
instead of briefs, and, beginning by cozening jurtes, 
he compounds with heaven by cramming children in 
a Sunday school." Disraeli, as is elsewhere indicated, 
was not a lover of lawyers. 

To an objectionable person's invitation, Disraeli 
began his refusal "Dear Sir." His secretary pointed 
out that this formalism would come unflatteringly to 
one who was of great importance in a certain county: 

"D the county!" said Disraeli. As a last futile 

effort the secretary said: "But he is important to 
the party." "D the party!" said Disraeli. 

Janetta, Duchess of Rutland, writes: "Though so 
kind, he knew there were occasions when the truest 
proof of real kindness was to maintain his own views. 
No consideration would induce him to concede a point 
that, in his estimation, ought not to be yielded." 

Of Sir Charles Dilke, after his Republican speech 

138 



IMPRESSIONS AND PORTRAITS 

at Newcastle-on-Tyne: "A future Conservative Prime 
Minister." 

Sir Charles was then the leader of a little con- 
stellation of politicians, called by somebody "the 
Dilky way." "The stars, which are the brain of 
heaven," one remembers, in this connection, that Mr. 
George Meredith somewhere says. One can say no 
more of this than that Disraeli's prophecies, even the 
unlikeliest, have the unusual habit of coming true. 

A member of his Administration (Lord Bury, after- 
ward Earl of Albemarle) went to the Prime Minister 
in fear and trembling to confess that he had joined 
the Church of Rome. He began by saying that a 
diflQculty had arisen, quite unconnected with politics, 
and that he was afraid it meant party embarrassment, 
and that he therefore placed his resignation in his 
leader's hands. 

Lord Beaconsfield, laconically: "A lady?" 

"Well, if you like — the Scarlet Lady. I have be- 
come a Catholic." 

Lord Beaconsfield: "But how very convenient. A 
relative of mine has just taken the same step; and 
now you can tell me, what was terribly puzzling me, 
the appropriate thing to say in congratulation." 

To a friend who showed him at the Grosvenor 
Gallery Watts's portrait of Swinburne: "What is this 
youthful version of an unregenerate Duke of Argyll?" 
The allusion was to the eighth Duke of Argyll. 

On seeing Lord Hartington yawn during his 
maiden speech: "He'll do." Perhaps this gave the 
hint to the witty authors of Wisdom While You Wait. 

139 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

For wlien the Insidecompletuar Britanniaware was 
thrust on Devonshire House, the Duchess implored: 
"Be so good as to send for the volumes at once: we 
find it impossible to keep the Duke awake." 

So much for a jest. But the collector of Disraeli- 
ana has a grave tribute to pay to this always fair and 
honorable opponent of Disraeli — the St. Aldegonde of 
Lothair, drawn by Disraeli with no unfriendly hand. 
Amid the hurricane of reproaches that fell upon the 
Queen's Favorite Minister during the Midlothian cam- 
paign, one voice was raised, if only to be drowned, in 
the surrounding clamor. That voice was Lord Hart- 
ington's. 

"No one can justly attribute any mean or un- 
worthy motives to Lord Beaconsfield. I firmly believe 
that he has had in view what he believes to be the 
greatness of his country and the power of the Sov- 
ereign whom he serves." 

These words, spoken toward the close of the Gen- 
eral Election of 1880, when it was already clear that 
the Tory party was worsted, shall pass down to his- 
tory in high contrast with those of most of the Liberal 
candidates of the day. The gratitude of two persons 
that speaker instantly won — Disraeli's own and that 
of the Queen, who — let it be noted, as it should be, 
in this connection — subsequently wished that Lord 
Hartington, not Mr. Gladstone, should form the Ad- 
ministration that was to follow. 

Writing to me more than twenty years after the 
utterance of these just and, under the conditions, 
generous words, the Duke of Devonshire (July, 1903) 

140 



IMPRESSIONS AND PORTRAITS 

says: "Nothing that has since happened or become 
known has induced me to alter in any degree the 
opinion which I then expressed of Lord Beaconsfield's 
political character and aims." 

Of a member who brought forward a yearly anti- 
Popery motion: "For years this man has been a bore; 
he has now become an institution." 

Disraeli's apologetic comment when a statesman, 
who was also a man of many asperities, became a 
Knight of the Thistle, and was under smoking- 
room criticism: "He is a Thistle; and yet unreason- 
ing people are disappointed that they do not gather 
figs." 

Similarly, in earlier years Disraeli had said of a 
pamphlet by his impetuous adversary. Roebuck: 
"Crab-apples grow upon crab-trees, and the meager 
and acid mind produces the meager and acid 
pamphlet." 

To a Princess of impulsive patriotism (Mary of 
Cambridge), who, wishing the Government to make 
a move against Russia, said to the Prime Minister at 
a dinner-party, "I can not imagine what you are 
waiting for": "Potatoes, at this moment, madam." 

To Cardinal Manning: "I say Tory. I do not say 
Conservative — it is too long a word." 

"I think you must be my Impresario." In his 
reading of men, Disraeli was not only very accurate, 
but also very rapid; and in one case at least a casual 
meeting of his in a country house with a man much 
his junior led to a long and close association. It was 
at Raby in the time of the last Duke of Cleveland; 

141 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

and the album of the house contained a sentiment, 
put there in a happy couplet by Lord Bennet: 

What a pity at Raby 
There isn't a baby. 

And that, though not in a literal sense, was the opin- 
ion of the girls of the house-party one wet afternoon. 

Sundays are dull in country houses: we have St. 
Aldegonde's word for it; but wet week-days can be 
very dull too, within and without. On this particular 
afternoon — a very particular afternoon in the lives 
of two people — a group of young ladies insisted upon 
being amused; and, having no actual baby in hand, 
they seized on a young man with a reputation for 
gravity and wisdom, and insisted on his becoming 
a juvenile for their sakes. He was to organize 
charades; and, first of all, was made to dance a break- 
down and to sing a comic song to the accompaniment 
of the rattle of his heels upon the floor. The very 
incongruity between the man and the fooling gave 
license to the fun. With simplicity — like that of the 
earlier follower of St. Francis who went on all fours 
to be a fool for Christ's sake, and let the pompous 
people sneer, yet added the Stahat Mater to the great 
poetry of the Church — he stooped to folly and raised 
mirth. In the midst of the frolic he looked up and 
saw the face of Disraeli in the doorway. 

His first meeting with the Minister, the night be- 
fore, had been an event in his life. The Minister had 
received him cordially, saying: "I had a great respect 
for your father." And now, on this afternoon, when 

142 



IMPRESSIONS AND PORTRAITS 

he was supposed to have gone to his chamber for 
letter- writing, the Minister was witness of this farce; 
and the willing yet unwilling performer heard in mem- 
ory one sentence that choked his song : "I had a great 
respect for your father." "And what a fool he must 
think me!" was his reflection as he ceased at once his 
dance and shout with a deferential gesture toward 
the onlooker — always the onlooker. The girls, bent 
with laughter, cried out to him to go on; and, yielding 
to their entreaties, he submitted to continue his per- 
formance. The Minister remained for another min- 
ute or two, his face betraying neither amusement nor 
vexation. Then he turned his back on the revels and 
took refuge in his room. "He had a respect for my 
father, and what a fool he must think me!" was the 
improvised entertainer's haunting reflection for the 
rest of the tedious afternoon. 

After dinner that evening, when the others passed 
out of the dining-room, Disraeli waited for the young 
man, now grave even beyond his custom. He ex- 
pected one of two things — either to receive an ad- 
monition or to be treated with candor as a farceur. 
The Minister's hand was on his shoulder, and the 
words came: "I think you must be my Impresario.'^ 
The Minister had seen in him one who was sensitive 
yet compliant; he knew his man; and the tie thus be- 
gun — perhaps the closest he had, except only that 
which marriage brought him — endured until the end. 

Coleridge, addressing a scoffing crowd at Bristol, 
said: "When on the burning embers of Democracy 
you throw the cold waters of reason, the result is a 

143 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

Mss." Disraeli, quoting this, declared to Bernal Os- 
borne: "That retort, made to an Athenian mob, 
would have prevailed; and I would rather have been 
the author of it than of half my speeches." 

To Cardinal Manning, who said to him, "You have 
always venerated the Creeds, yet you are now praised 
in all the reviews of Lothair for that formula-annulling 
levity: All sensible men are of one religion.' 'What 
is that?' 'Sensible men never tell'": "Oh, but that 
was surely the saying of a distinguished Bishop of 
your Church — Talleyrand?" 

"Then we will make him Lord High Commissioner 
to the Church of Scotland." This was said when Lord 
Bosslyn's claims for a Government recognition were 
under discussion, and when somebody said that he was 
a good swearer. Lord Rosslyn might have had the 
Mastership of the Horse, or anything he liked, had 
Disraeli foreseen his benefactions to mankind. But 
they were still hidden in school-room or the nursery. 

"Of course I am gratified — you know my tender 
feeling for all women." Thus Disraeli to a lord-in- 
The "Gaiety" waiting, under rather whimiscal circum- 
of Nations. stances, in the seventies, what time the 
Russian Bear was suspected of sharpening his claws. 
Princess Louise also happened to be crossing the seas 
to or from Canada. It was Sunday; a breeze blew 
about Windsor Castle; and the Queen expressed anx- 
iety as to the state of winds and waves in mid- Atlan- 
tic. A lord-in-waiting said he knew a Fellow of the 
Eoyal Society, a weather-diviner, who would give the 

144 



THE "GAIETY " OF NATIONS 

word. He would go to get it, if her Majesty wished. 
Her Majesty did wish; and she further entrusted her 
pursuivant with a message for Lord Beaconsfleld. The 
lord-in-waiting was sent from the Professor's house 
to a supper of Gaiety girls, and there found him in this 
lively company, being himself constrained to listen 
to the game of words that was passing round. The 
problem for the ladies was: Which would they choose 
if they had to marry — Gladstone or Disraeli? All 
elected Disraeli save one; who was much frowned on 
by the company until she explained: "Gladstone, so 
that I might elope with Disraeli and break Glad- 
stone's heart." 

The lord-in-waiting, much diverted, went forth, 
and finding Disraeli in low spirits, told him this tale, 
as an instance of his great popularity with all classes. 
^'I come," he said, "from the Queen, who holds you 
highest in the land, and from dancing-girls who adore 
you." 

The whimsicality of the thing was congenial to 
Disraeli. "Of course I am gratified," he said, greatly 
comforted; and next day showed that indeed he was. 
A Cabinet Council, summoned for noon, was kept 
waiting for the arrival of a Minister — the Duke of 
Eichmond, I believe. To pass the time, Disraeli told his 
assembled colleagues the story of the theatrical sup- 
per — just to show, he said, what unexpected friends 
they all had. Lord Cairns {ahsit omen!), hearing, did 
not smile; and his solemnity put out of countenance 
the Prime Minister, who therefore made the continued 
absence of a colleague an excuse, for postponing the 
11 145 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

Council for a couple of hours. The "balance of 
power" was then unstable as quicksilver; and that 
afternoon the papers had headings: "War Imminent: 
A Second Cabinet Council summoned." Wires 
throbbed under the tidings; the Stock Exchange 
shivered; the Paris Bourse sensitively responded; all 
Europe felt the thrill. The Gaiety girls (as the 
Minister reflected, and with no qualm), for the first 
and last time in their lives, through a chance associa- 
tion with him, had made history: their theater was 
at last the "Gaiety" of nations. 

"What is the difference between a misfortune and 

a calamity?" — somebody asked a new definition from 

Disraeli. The questioner, being no liter- 

Gladstoniana. 

alist, but a man of liberal understanding, 
got the reply: "Well, if Gladstone fell into the 
Thames, that would be a misfortune; and if anybody 
pulled him out, that, I suppose, would be a calamity." 

To Mr. Gladstone, who had remarked across the 
table of the House, "We were sincere in all we 
did": "I never doubted your sincerity, only your 
ability." 

This seems an echo of the old taunt he had ad- 
dressed to a foe in early life: "I am bound to furnish 
my antagonists with arguments, but not with com- 
prehension." 

Again across the table of the House of Commons 
to Mr. Gladstone, who had come to an involuntary 
pause: "Your last word — 'Revolution.' " Canon Mac- 
Coll, I should add, disputes this story, which he traces; 

146 



THE PRIMROSE 

to a reminder once given by Disraeli to Gladstone that 
his last word was "satellites." 

''A man of splendid abilities, hampered by his 
Church liaisons," This, to Mr. Espinasse, when 
Gladstone was still member for the University of Ox- 
ford. Gladstone, going to Lancashire, later made the 
admission: "Gentlemen, I stand before you un- 
muzzled." 

"Almost a stateman. Not redeemed by a single 
vice." 

On hearing that Mr. Gladstone was in excellent 
form as the guest of Lady Cowper at Wrest Park 
(November, 1879), Lord Beaconsfield, who was not 
above a pun, said: "Doubtless he thinks that I, the 
wicked, will cease from troubling while he, the weary, 
is at Wrest." 

In a letter (still unpublished) addressed to a friend 
at the time of Gladstone's retirement from the Gov- 
ernment, Lord Beaconsfield says he rejoices that "the 
casting out of evil spirits is not, after all, a thing 
of the past." 

"Gladstone treats the Queen like a public depart- 
ment — I treat her like a woman." 

"My favorite primrose," said Lord Beaconsfield in 

1878 to Dean Pigou. It is, however, Queen Victoria's 

inscription, "His favorite flower," that 

The Primrose. 

has associated the primrose (in bloom at 
the time of his death) memorially with his name. 

"Let us go to the Faun." One of the trees in the 
Green Park Lord Beaconsfield, in allusion to its sug- 

147 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

gestive shape, called "the Faun"; and in the early- 
summer each year, during his later life, Lord Beacons- 
field would say to^Lord Eowton: "Let us 

The Faun. 

go to the Faun." Casual passers-by won- 
dered to see the Minister with his secretary "worship- 
ing" at this sylvan shrine. ("I am not surprised that 
the ancients worshiped trees" is a phrase found in 
one of his latest letters.) Together they went, and, 
when one was taken, the survivor continued year after 
year his summer pilgrimage to that London-skirted 
shrine. 

"It will see me out." This he said when in 1880 he 
took a nine years' lease of the Curzon Street house' 
in which, only nine months later, he died. 

Habitations. 

It may be of service here to give such a 
register as it is now possible to make of the successive 
houses occupied by Disraeli in town — a list perhaps 
convenient to autograph collectors and others, some- 
times puzzled by a hieroglyphic or a hasty capital 
letter to indicate the writer's whereabouts — such as 
"D. S." for Downing Street, "G. G." for Grosvenor 
Gate, "C. C." for the Carlton Club, and so forth. 

1804-1817: 6 King's Koad, Holborn, now (1903) 
Theobalds Road. 

1817-1829: 6 Bloomsbury Square, often renum- 
bered in the interval, but again in 1887 restored to 
its old number, 6. 

February, 1832 (after his return from prolonged 
travels), he describes himself as "comfortably located 
in Duke Street, St. James's." 

148 



COMPLIMENTS 

May, 1835: 31a Park Street, Grosvenor Square, 
after sojourning at No. 3 in the same street as his 
father's guest for some months. 

January, 1836: 34 Upper Grosvenor Street. 

1839-1872: Grosvenor Gate (now 29 Park Lane). 

1873: 2 Whitehall Gardens, a delightful house, 
now worthily occupied by Messrs. A. Constable & Co. 

1874: 10 Downing Street. 

1880: After a brief tenancy in Charles Street, 
Grosvenor Square, he took the house in Curzon Street 
(No. 19) where, in the following spring, more punctual 
to his word than he had expected, he passed away. 

Lord Beaconsfield, while his title was still fresh, 
was surprised in the street by the bow of a lady whom 
Com liments ^^ ^^il^d to recognize. "Who is she?" he 
asked of the companion on whose arm he 
leant. "Lady Sebright." Anxious to atone, he half 
turned round to the lady, who was half turning to 
him, and who then ran forward and said: 

"How do you do, Mr. Disraeli? Oh, I beg pardon, 
Lord Beaconsfield." 

"Of what use is my coronet to me, my dear lady, 
so long as Sir John is alive?" 

Sir William Fraser's version is characteristic of 
Sir William Fraser. "On his first becoming Premier 
the wife of Sir X. Y. stepped from her brougham in 
St. James's Street, and effusively said: 'You are at 
last in your right place, where you ought to be.' Dis- 
raeli, who could not have liked this open-air demon- 
stration, at once replied : 'What is the good of it all, 

149 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

so long as Sir X. lives.' " Possibly the Tory member 
who recently quoted the story to me in illustration of 
Disraeli's humbug knew it only in the Fraser version. 
The authentic version supplies the otherwise missing 
motive^Disraeli's desire to make gallant amends for 
his first forgetfulness of the lady. 

A Chinese Ambassador, having expressed regret, 
through the Embassy interpreter, that he could not 
speak English, Disraeli said to the interpreter: "Pray 
beg the Ambassador to remain in this country until 
I can speak Chinese." 

Probably these were the same Chinese Ambassa- 
dor and his interpreter whom Browning met at about 
this date. The interpreter said that his Excellency 
and the Englishman were brother poets. "Eh?" said 
Browning, looking with new interest at the Celestial, 
doubly fathered by Phoebus, 

"Giver of golden days and golden song." 

"Yes," said the interpreter, "he writes enigmas." 

"A brother indeed," cried Browning. But the 
written story fails for lack of the laugh the poet 
laughed in the telling of it. 

On sitting beside Georgina, Lady Dudley, and see- 
ing her hold out her arm: "Canova!" 

Disraeli was in some moods a dealer in few words; 
so that Lady Bulwer-Lytton, who introduces him 
under a thin disguise in one of her novels, makes him 
so much of an economist of words as to say "Morn- 
ing," for "Good morning." He was of her husband's 
friends; therefore, the poor lady thought, none of 

150 



DIVERSIONS 

hers; so that when he sat in impressionable velvet 
upon a cane-chair, she felt very happy in saying that 
^'he bore upon him the brand of Cain." 

Toward the end of his life, Disraeli's face had the 
almost comatose aspect which Millais has too pain- 
fully preserved; and then Madame de Murrieta 
(Marquesa de Santurce) was one of the few people 
able by her inspiriting presence to rouse him from his 
lethargy. On the occasion of a Rothschild wedding 
where he and she were neighbors among the guests, 
she noticed with concern that the jewels and "ropes 
of pearls" among the wedding presents did not, as 
of old, kindle a light in the eye of Israel. He sat in 
an abstraction that bordered upon death. A person- 
age then approached the Marquesa, praised the 
precious stones, gorgeous as the Hebrew dreams of 
New Jerusalem, and added with gallantry: "But your 
eyes send them all into the shade." 

"And call me out of the shades," interposed Lord 
Beaconsfleld, with a sudden animation that made him 
what the experienced Marquesa said she had of old 
found him to be — the most finished and fastidious 
talker in town. 

Disraeli was a fair hand at whist — a game in which 

he was sharpened by his early friend. Clay, who wrote 

a book about it. He is remembered at 

Diversions. 

Lamington as playing with the daughters 
of the house; and it was his custom to address to them 
little notes which he very irregularly threw across 
the table — a real diversion. For once he was a player 

151 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

with distractions. Lady Lamington's memory of him 
as a talker is that he was a man of moods: sometimes 
silent, but sometimes overflowing with anecdote, epi- 
gram, and hyperbole; also that he was drawn out by 
women rather than by men. The late Mr. Christopher 
Sykes used to remark that whereas Gladstone good- 
naturedly overflowed to everybody, Disraeli talked as 
an opportunist — awaiting the favorable time and 
place and audience for the production of his good 
things. He himself somewhere has an agreeably 
ironic allusion to Kensington Gardens as a haunt 
where we not only polish our perorations, but "pre- 
pare our impromptus." 

Though an intrepid rider in youth, and a good shot, 
Disraeli knew his duty to the country, in a great sense, 
too well to make the hunting-field his arena. Perhaps 
he never taunted any sportsman among his followers 
as George II once taunted a Duke of Grafton, with 
"spending all his time in tormenting a poor fox that 
was generally a much better beast than any of the 
brutes that pursued him." Nevertheless, one of his 
most satisfying triumphs was his success in persuad- 
ing Lord George Bentinck to give up to Parliament 
and Protection the time he had devoted to his stables. 
As years advanced Disraeli's appearances in the field 
might be counted on five fingers. In 1853, when he 
was the guest of his great friend, Lord Galway, at 
Serlby, he was persuaded to go out fox-hunting. 
Three cheers were given by the tenant-farmers of 
Notts for their great advocate and friend. With Lord 
Wilton, too, he rode to hounds in 1869; and again 

152 




No. 19 CURZON STREET, MAYFAIR. 
The house which was taken by Disraeh in 1880, and in which he died in 1881. 



DIVERSIONS 

won plaudits for the courage he showed in taking the 
saddle after long abstention — a sore experience it 
was to him very literally. 

During a visit in 1873 to Lamington, the Scottish 
seat of his former fellow Young Englander, Mr. Baillie 
Cochrane (whom he sent to the Upper House as Lord 
Lamington), Disraeli was called upon to plant a con- 
ifer. He threw a shilling into the pit prepared for the 
planting: "To bring fortune to the family" — fortune 
which took the form of the second Lord Lamington's 
high ability to serve his country as Governor of 
Queensland. On the occasion of that planting, as 
Lady Lamington remembers, her big dog ran out, 
brushed against Disraeli and grazed his leg against a 
wall. He was already gouty, and that evening, as a 
result of the bruise, of which he made light at the mo- 
ment, he was obliged to keep to his room. 

Lady Lamington's daughter, Constance, Countess 
De la Warr, remembers another rural scene, with the 
touch of Courts about it to endear it the more to the 
heart of Lord Beaconsfleld. He was her guest at 
Buckhurst (her father, by an odd coincidence, had, 
long before her marriage, been accorded the name of 
Buckhurst in Coningsly) and there was a daily lunch 
in the woods. Once, as they sat down, the sylvan 
solitude was further disturbed. The jingle of harness, 
soft in the distance as Titania's bells, and unexpected 
as those horn-blasts which disturbed the Bavarian 
woodman's midnight dreams what time King Otto 
went a-hunting, was heard by the astonished party 
at luncheon. In reply to an exclamation of the host- 

153 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

ess Disraeli explained: "It is a Queen's Messenger 
in quest of me. Loving the incongruous, I gave in- 
structions that he was to find me for State business 
in a forest." That Queen's Messenger seems to step 
straight into our midst from the pages of Disraelian 
romance. Other authors go to society for their epi- 
sodes. Disraeli, for his own social inspirations, fre- 
quently went to his novels. He himself made his 
characters credible; for, if he did not go to life for 
them in the first instance, he himself lived the novels 
he had written. 

Well had he himself said: "A literary man who 
is a man of action is a two-edged weapon; nor should 
it be forgotten that Julius Csesar and Frederick the 
Great were both eminent literary characters, and yet 
were perhaps the two most distinguished men of 
action of ancient and modern times." Equally could 
one conceive of either of them fighting a battle to 
bear out a book or writing a book to make record 
of a battle. Disraeli in life constantly blended fiction 
with fact, and fact with fiction. If Waterloo was won 
on the playing-fields of Eton, the title Beaconsfield 
was taken in the early chapters of Vivian Grey, and 
Cyprus annexed and the Queen made Empress of 
India in the pages of Tancred. Well, in one respect, 
did Mr. Balfour say to a lady who longed to meet 
Dizzy that he was but "a brazen mask speaking his 
own novels." 

To the Hon. Keginald Brett: "I never trouble to 
be avenged. When a man injures me, I put his name 

154 



TIME'S REVENGES 

on a slip of paper and lock it up in a drawer. 
Time's It is marvelous how the men I have thus 

Revenges. labeled have the knack of disappearing." 
An anecdote for which I am indebted to the Poet 
Laureate makes a delightful sequel to this saying. It 
shows us the fairer side of the medal. Sir John 
Pope-Hennessy, in early youth, conceived a romantic 
admiration for Disraeli and wrote to him a letter 
couched somewhat in the strain of that in which Mag- 
gie Tulliver told Sir Walter how clever she was and 
how unhappy. The Irish boy's letter to Disraeli end- 
ed, "/ love you." No answer came: Disraeli's rule of 
no reply was all but inexorable. Did he put the 
names, too, of these ardent acolytes away in that 
drawer, beside those of his detractors? Certain it is, 
that immediately Pope-Hennessy made his first ad- 
venturous attack on an Irish seat, and was rewarded 
by success, a messenger came down to his chambers 
in the Temple bearing a missive from Disraeli. It 
was a hasty summons to a Parliamentary dinner the 
next night, where all others around the board were 
senators of experience. The after career of "the 
Pope" as a Colonial Governor of Disraeli's making 
was full of romantic incidents, hinting at universal 
rather than official sympathies, and a disposition to 
make war, not on native races, but on Downing 
Street. 

"I find the greatest repose in solitude," he said 
at Hughenden, toward his life's close, to Janetta, 
Duchess of Kutland. This became the abiding mood; 

155 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

but it was not a solitude that is vacancy; it was 
peopled; it was the "never less alone than when alone" 
Alone in the of Cardinal Newman. He enjoyed peace 
Country. — with houor; a repose that was not 

paralysis; a resting on, rather than from, his labors; 
books were always his friends, and they now became 
his company at dinner, with a pause for ten minutes' 
reading between each course. The mistress of Hugh- 
enden was no more, but memories of her were all 
about him; and he could take in retrospect the pleas- 
ure she had once shared with him in his woods and 
fields; in those beloved juniper bushes; in the pea- 
cocks, not more proud of themselves than he was 
proud of them; in the starlight, wherein he walked to 
the accompaniment of bats; in the sunshine, which 
had been his very life in youth; and in the round 
of seasons, rough and sweet, subtly charged for 
mourning man with ever new uncovenanted com- 
pensations. 

"I have scarcely exchanged a word with any one 
for three weeks; ^ but the delight of living in the 
country in summer is ever new to me: I perpetually 
discover fresh charms." 

This, too, was said to the same friend, doubly en- 
deared to Lord Beaconsfleld for her husband's sake 
and her own. She bore witness to the wide sympathy 
with which he looked out on the world, and the re- 
ward which nature gave to him, as to all townsmen 
who "go seek her, find her, and are friends again": 

J Again, he wrote during his widowerhood to the Duchess from lonely 
Hughenden : " I have not spoken to a human being for a fortnight." 

156 




THE EARL OF WILTON SHOWS DIZZY THE BELVOIR HOUNDS, 

1869. 



By permission of Messrs. Archibald Constable & Co., Ltd. 



i 



THE BEGINNING OF THE END 

"He delighted in flowers, from the violet and prim- 
rose to the gardenia or the rare orchid. Beautiful 
faces, soft voices, children's ways, even if sometimes 
rather like what we hear of Puck, refreshed him." 
No understanding of Disraeli as looker-on or prime 
actor in life will be intelligent unless this element of 
"Puckishness" be taken in count. The Duchess con- 
tinues: "Lord Beaconsfleld seemed to find pleasure 
in the commonest beauties — the luxuriance of the 
grass, even the apparent comfort of the cattle in the 
rich pastures. He spent much time in the open air. 
Like John Evelyn, he found constant interest in trees 
and the theoretical part of woodcraft." 

"It pains me to see it: take it away." The capacity 
for pleasure implies (alas, in what disproportion!) the 
capacity for pain. One day Lord Beaconsfleld, walk- 
ing in Hughenden Park with Janetta, Duchess of Rut- 
land, was accosted by a daft rustic, to whom he had 
gladly given the liberty of his demesne. "Lord Bea- 
consfleld," his companion afterward recorded, "spoke 
in a particularly kind manner and listened to his 
story. The poor old man rambled in his talk about 
a dead bird he had found and carried in his hand. 
Lord Beaconsfleld, after looking at the bird, said: '^It 
pains me to see it: take it away.' " 

"I must speak at once" — the message he sent to 
Lord Granville across the floor of the House of Lords 
The Beginning during an early stage of the debate on 
of the End. -^j^^ Gladstone Government's abandon- 
ment of Candahar on March 5, 1881. 

157 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

At the fag-end of his life, you may say he was im- 
patient for the first time. The "I can wait" of his 
early school-days, and the "they may wait" of his ap- 
prenticeship in the House of Commons, expressed the 
twofold spirit in which, five years earlier, he had en- 
tered on his duties in the House of Lords. 

"Your lordships will remember," said Lord Gran- 
ville, after the passing away of Lord Beaconsfield, 
and in illustration of his powers of patience and self- 
control, "how silent and reticent he was at first, until 
an unfounded accusation gave him an opportunity of 
making a speech, which at once established the hold 
on this House which he had so long maintained in 
another place." But now was no time for delay, 
though it was still the time for self-repression. Lord 
Granville's word reached home once more: "At ten 
o'clock on the second evening of the Afghan debate, 
Lord Beaconsfield sent me word that he must speak 
at once. I sent back a strong remonstrance. Two 
noble lords who formerly held ofiice, and a third with 
remarkable power of speaking, wished to take part in 
the debate. Lord Beaconsfield, however, persisted, 
and, in following him, I complained to your lordships 
of what he had done. I thought at the time I was 
justified in that complaint; but it is with regret that 
I have since learned that just before my remonstrance 
Lord Beaconsfield had swallowed one drug and in- 
haled another in quantities nicely calculated to free 
him from his suffering during the time required for 
his speech." 

The double Lord Beaconsfield indeed: the man of 

158 



A COUNSEL OF PERFECTION 

physical courage, whom pain could not quell; the man 
of moral courage who, rather than parade, or even 
plead, his claim to a place on the political martyr- 
ology of England, preferred to be lectured, lamented 
over, and misunderstood. 

The twelfth Duke of Somerset, in 1878, looking 
near half a century backward, said: "Many years 
The Proces- ^g^, when Disraeli was dining with me, 
sion's Close, before he was in Parliament, we were 
talking of ^What was the most desirable life?' and 
he said he considered the most desirable life to be 
'A continued grand procession from manhood to the 
tomb.'" 

He had his desire. 

It is interesting to recall Disraeli's own record of 
a dinner — perhaps the very occasion of this visionary 
pronouncement — with the Duke, then Lord St. Maur, 
so far back as the June of 1833: 

"I dined yesterday with the St. Maurs to meet Mrs. 
Sheridan" (the grandmother of Lady St. Maur). "An 
agreeable party; and Mrs. Blackwood and Brinsley. 
Lord St. Maur, great talent, which develops itself in 
a domestic circle, though otherwise shy-mannered." 

It was this shyness which never deserted him, to- 
gether with an unerring reticence and a dignified 
restraint stoics might envy, that gained for him the 
sobriquet of "the proud Duke of Somerset." 

A Counsel of To his best friend, as a last direction 

Perfection. before his death: "Never defend me." 

159 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

"I have no strength left — let us return." To Lord 
Barrington the words were spoken by Lord Beacons- 
The Last field in the east-windy March of 1881, 
Illness. during a walk in the neighborhood of 

Curzon Street — the last before the Minister took to 
bed. Five weeks later, the attack of bronchitis, an 
expression of gout, and attended by spasmodic asth- 
ma, closed his life. Lord Rowton having accompanied 
his sister, who was seriously ill, to the South of 
France, Lord Barrington was in charge of the Chief. 
More than once during their walks together the Min- 
ister exhibited evident signs of exhaustion, such as 
these quoted words express. Once, indeed, he had 
to support himself by holding on to the iron railings 
of a house he was passing; and but for the assistance 
of Lord Barrington's arm would have been unable to 
get home. Having taken to his bed, he was never 
able to leave it, except in moments when the muscular 
debility which commonly overcame him seemed to 
lift, and to leave him in possession of a delusive en- 
ergy of body matching that energy of will which even 
yet no bodily lassitude could quench. 

"But how is it to be arranged with Kidd?" The 
question was put by Lord Beaconsfield when, in the 
early stages of his fatal illness, he was urged by Sir 
Philip Rose to call in Quain.^ Sir Philip was not the 
Minister's lawyer only; he was also his friend; he had 
been on the point of starting for Pau when, hearing 

1 Afterward Sir Eichard Quain. He was born at Mallow in 1816, and 
died at the age of eighty -two, leaving no heir to the baronetcy conferred on 
him seven years earlier in recognition of his services to members of the Royal 
Family. 

160 



THE LAST ILLNESS 

the grave news from Curzon Street, he hastened 
thither. Sir Philip, knowing that Dr. Kidd, a homeo- 
path, was in attendance, was urgent that his own 
doctor, who had attended him with success in an ill- 
ness partially like the Minister's, should be sum- 
-jnoned. Instantly the stricken man thought, not of 
the advantage to himself, but of possible uncomforta- 
ble complications for his first adviser of long and kind 
istanding. The diplomacy demanded by the situation 
was rendered the more delicate by the notorious un- 
willingness of allopaths to meet the dispensers of a 
•differing system. Now, however, time pressed; a life, 
precious to the nation — the nation had not known 
how precious until now — was at stake; and the Sov- 
ereign herself, whose wish was still a command to 
her Favorite Minister, urged the instant calling in of 
additional advice. So Dr. Quain came; and, a little 
later, he brought Dr. Bruce, a young specialist from 
the Brompton Hospital. While these three phy- 
isicians, and especially two of them, continued 
through nights and days to fight death inch by inch. 
Lord Beaconsfield cross-questioned them, speaking of 
his case as if it were that of a stranger; an onlooker 
was he to the end. 

"I will not go down to posterity as one who used 
bad grammar." To Lord Barrington the words were 
addressed by Lord Beaconsfield during his last ill- 
ness, after he had corrected with pains a proof of the 
speech delivered a fortnight earlier in the House of 
Lords. The proof went back to the editor with this 
note : 

13 161 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

"19 CuRZON Street, W. 

"Lord Barrington presents Ms compliments to the 
editor of Hansard^s Debates and returns the proof- 
sheet of Lord Beaconsfield's speech on the address of 
condolence to the Queen/ corrected by his own hand 
this day. 

•■'■March 31st, 1881" 

Among the "Letters" printed elsewhere will be 
found one addressed to Mr. Hansard by Disraeli twen- 
ty years earlier, showing the almost excited care with 
which he entered on the third and last stage of a 
speech, so that the careful preparation and delivery 
of it should be followed by an equally careful report. 
As for the grammar, the allusion embodies what per- 
haps may be called Disraeli's one large illusion. Alas! 
Disraeli's books, as now printed, do send him down 
to posterity — a long one may it be! — a user of bad 
grammar. He was, in some familiar faults, even as a. 
Gibbon gone mad. 

It may be said, indeed, that Disraeli did very lit- 
erally write the Queen's English, and not only in the 
Queen's speeches. Neither Queen Victoria nor her 
Minister was able to realize the superfluity of the 
"and" before a relative which is not a reiterated one. 
"We are in the midst of a ministerial crisis and which 
I am afraid will be followed by others," wrote Queen 
Victoria. And Disraeli: "His presence was a relief 
to an anxious family and who were beginning to get 
alarmed." Again: "He had become possessed of a 
vast principality and which was not an hour's drive 

» On the assassination of the Tsar of Eussia. 

162 



THE LAST ILLNESS 

from Whitechapel," Nor was the grammar. These 
sentences, taken at random from Endymion, may 
perhaps suggest yet another addition to the many 
ridiculous explanations of the bond of sympathy be- 
tween her Majesty and Lord Beaconsfield. It may 
be traced to a superfluous conjunction.^ 

On being told that Lord Rowton was speeding 
from Algiers, and would be with him on a certain day: 
"Oh no," Lord Beaconsfield said, "he can not be here 
so soon. Nobody comes straight from Algiers. He 
must stop three days on the journey to acclimatize." 
This he said of the man who had been more to him 

' " And which," in this jumbled sense, is rampant in Lothair. " The last 
saloon led into a room of smaller dimensions opening on the garden, and 
which Lothair thought," etc. " Lothair . . , had the gratification, for the 
first time, of seeing his own service of gold plate laid out in completeness, 
and which had been for some time exhibited." " On the lawn was a tent of 
many colors, designed by himself, and which might have suited some splen- 
did field of chivalry." " ' I know no higher sentiment,' said Theodora, in a 
low voice, and yet which sounded like the breathing of some divine shrine." 
" A procession of almost unequal {sic) splendor and sanctity, and which was 
to parade the whole church." "In the next room, not less spacious, but 
which had a more inhabited look." These instances, picked almost at ran- 
dom, consort with shufiling, down-at-heel sentences such as these : " ' All I 
can do is,' said his Eminence, when his visitor was ushered out, and shrug- 
ging his shoulders," etc. Neither his Eminence nor the visitor shrugged 
grammatically, but we are to suppose that the shoulders were his Eminence's. 
Furthermore, Lothair " felt how inferior was this existence to that of a life 
in a truly religious family." The divine Theodora, too, gives a twist to her 
utterances. " ' You have not suffered, I hope ? ' said Lothair. ' Very little, 
and through your kindness,' " is the reply, which says, but does not mean, 
that the lady had suffered through the kindness of her adorer. " Instead of 
being a parasite," our author says in another place, " everybody flattered 
him," which is not at all what he meant to say. "As she spoke she moved, 
and, without formally inviting him, he found himself walking by her side," 
is another jumble of verbs and pronouns. " Although never authoritative 
. . . Lothair could not but feel that during the happy period he had passed 
in her society not only his taste had refined," etc. It is not Lothair, however, 

163 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

than a brother; and the saying is the measure of his 
final patience, the ruling habit strong in death. Yet 
by the time Lord Rowton did in all haste arrive, the 
sufferer had begun to dread the excitement of an in- 
terview so long postponed, and now so charged with 
emotion. Not until the fourth day after his return, 
therefore, did it take place. 

"Let him come to me gradually," the dying Chief 
said to Lord Barrington, when made aware that Lord 
Eowton was in waiting. With the failure of his nerve 
power — the nerve power which had so long borne the 
strain, and which was always superior to his mere 
muscular strength — any effort, mental or physical, 
became a terrible fatigue — even the effort of seeing 
his friends. Lord Barrington, therefore, rarely went 
to him where he lay or sat, half-recumbent on an in- 
valid lounge in one of the rooms which, being en suite, 
permitted him change of air when he was wheeled 
from one to another; and it was his servant, Baum, 
whom, on April 11th, he requested to read the report 

but the lady who was " not authoritative." " Neither Monsignor Capel nor 
Father Coleman were present," contains an error besides that famous one of 
the real Capel for the fictitious Catesby. The sporting grammarian may make 
a record bag of similar and fifty other species of errors on the spacious hunt- 
ing-grounds of these last couple of romances, which, if not better, are not 
worse than their predecessors — all, by literary ill-luck, written at top speed 
and too hastily revised. The friend — every author possesses such a one 
friend, and nearly every other author used him — to whom these pages might 
have passed for revision while the novelist lived might surely, one thinks, 
render that humble pedagogic service even now, and so fulfil in spirit the only 
prediction of Disraeli's about himself that time has been able to falsify : "I 
will not go down to posterity as one who used bad grammar." Meanwhile a 
certain ignominy — the word is not too strong— attaches to what is illogical or 
slip shod in language ; even while readers rejoice that, just as good grammar 
does not redeem a bad book, bad grammar cannot destroy a good one. 

164 



THE LAST ILLNESS 

of the Parliamentary debate on the day before. Baum 
excused himself, and suggested that Lord Rowton 
should undertake the task, a proposal which the Chief 
instantly accepted, and which, in the carrying out of 
it, made more possible that saddest of reunions that 
proclaims the imminence of final farewell. What loss 
had been inflicted by the secretary's absence at the 
outset can never be said; but the deprivation, from 
the doctors' standpoint, was hinted at in an article 
published in the Lancet when all was over.^ 

Lord Beaconsfield: "What is the day of the 
month?" 

Lord Barrington: "April 7th." 

Lord Beaconsfield: "I think it is time you should 
write to the young Duke of Portland and tell him I 
can not come to him for Easter week." 

That was the last private business he transacted; 
and it serves to show that, until twelve days before 

* Lord Beaconsfield, for his health's sake, according to this writer, sliould 
have gone to the House of Lords earlier or not at all. " Speaking now freely, 
we believe the deceased statesman would have lived longer if he had not thus 
late retired to a scene of comparative quiet, upon which he ought, in the in- 
terests of his health, to have entered when the Queen urged him to do so 
some years before. As it was, Lord Beaconsfield was deprived of his accus- 
tomed mental stimulus at the precise moment when he most needed it ; and 
although his immediate personal feelings were those of relief, the physical 
ease was purchased at too great a price. Erom the outset of the last illness 
the case was, in our judgment, hopeless, unless the higher cerebral centers 
of the nervous system came to the relief of the lower. The bronchitis was 
not a ' complication,' but an integral part of the gouty affection. It was, in 
the history of the noble lord's life, one of the earliest indications of the gouty 
diathesis, the next in order of time being slight gastric and intestinal irrita- 
tion. It must ever be a source of regret that Lord Eowton, who alone had 
stood in close personal relations with the deceased gentleman during many 
recent and trying years of his life, was unavoidably absent during the first 

165 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

his death, he had not despaired of an early recovery. 
It was as he would have wished it to be: Welbeck, 
with all its associations of Lord George Bentinck in 
life and death, received his last social message. More- 
over, that failure to fulfil the Welbeck engagement 
ended his record with the dinner-party at w^hich he 
had been the guest of the Prince of Wales at Marl- 
borough House on Saturday, March 19th. He was 
very unwell that night when he came home; and, next 
day, he began that last confinement to his room which, 
a week later, was diversified by a meeting of some 
of his political colleagues to discuss the speech to be 
delivered by Lord Cairns in the House of Lords con- 
demning the Transvaal policy of the Liberal Govern- 
ment. 

"I like you to remain with me," Lord Beaconsfield 
said to one of his physicians who was about to depart, 
but made haste to stay. 

"No, no," the patient added after a few minutes of 
self-reproach, "I must not be selfish. Others need 
you — go!" 

and only hopeful stage of his illness. It is also, we think, unfortunate that 
Lord Rowton did not see the noble lord until four days after his return, 
whatever may have been the fact as to Lord Beaconsfield's own wishes in the 
matter. It is again, we think, to be regretted that her Majesty's graciously 
expressed desire to visit the noble lord was not carried into effect. We must 
be excused for giving expression to these regrets— they are essential to the 
professional view we take of the illness. In the end death occurred, as it ■ 
must have been expected to occur, after a temporary revival of the failing 
powers of vitality such as is usually manifested in cases of the class, in the 
closing days of a life lived, mainly, by mental energy or mind-force." Lord 
Beaconsfield was to die on the first anniversary of the day on which he left 
Windsor Castle after tendering to Queen Victoria his resignation as her 
Prime Minister. 

166 



THE LAST ILLNESS 

"Baum, you will be a liappy man: you will remem- 
ber with pleasure how much you have done for me." 
This Lord Beaconsfield said to his confidential at- 
tendant, who had formerly served Lady Beaconsfield, 
and who during five weeks of the fatal illness scarce 
left the bedside of his master. The care his servants 
took of him became almost a care of Lord Beacons- 
field's own at the last. "The servants ought to be 
rewarded," he said to Lord Rowton; "and Baum ought 
to be rewarded; I must leave it to you and Rose to 
arrange." 

"Take away that emblem of mortality," Lord 
Beaconsfield said, when a circular air-cushion was 
offered to him by the physicians. The allusion to the 
symbolic bladder from which, at Death's dart, the 
breath passes, indicated, even under effort, some of 
the old habit of hyperbolic expression. To the pol- 
itics of the day he made epigrammatic allusions, and 
the daily bulletins published in the papers, before all 
hope was abandoned, had his onlooking criticism. 
One day when the report ran, "Lord Beaconsfield's 
strength is maintained," "I presume," he said, "the 
physicians are conscious of that. It is more than 
I am." 

Again, when the slip of paper testifying that he 
"had taken nourishment well" was shown him, he 
demurred about the "well." In the same spirit, after 
listening to the fair words of one of the physicians, 
whom he narrowly watched, he said: "His words are 
hopeful, but his countenance is that of a disappointed 
man." 

167 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

"I have suffered much. Had I been a Nihilist, I 
should have confessed all." What exactly was the 
trend of thought underlying this almost last of Lord 
Beaconsfield's sayings has been sometimes in dispute. 
Various versions of the saying went abroad; and 
various interpretations, born of personal wishes and 
sympathies, were hazarded. That he desired to con- 
fess, even as Rossetti did when he came to die — a kind 
of spiritual trace of Italian sojournings of the old 
Disraelis under the shadow of Venetian domes dom- 
inating to the third generation — and that he led the 
way thus, inviting a response that was never made 
by the shy or the inept about him: this is one in- 
genious theory, to which was doubtless due the 
further rumor that a Jesuit confessor, close at hand 
in Farm Street (Father Clare was named), had been 
summoned to his side. Others, not less of fanatics, 
but less of friends, read into the words, or into vague 
versions of them, the vacuous longing of a man who 
had posed all his life to pose also in death; to do, not 
the natural thing, but the dramatic; to gratify a 
scenic passion and to pass away with a last appeal, 
not to God, but to the gods. They found him re- 
gretting that, not being a Nihilist, he would lack the 
luxury of a last confession. 

A quieter translation of the speech that came from 
that sensitive brain in the last stages of disarray, ran 
rather thus: "Deathbed avowals and moralizings are 
a legacy counted upon by the English public; and 
from me a section of that public expects the lip-serv- 
ice profession of faith I have shrunk from making in 

168 



THE LAST ILLNESS 

life, and can not now bring myself to frame. As La- 
cordaire said he died 'an impenitent Liberal,' so 
I too die an impenitent. I have nothing to re- 
tract, but if I had been a Nihilist, I should have 
confessed all." 

A more natural rendering remains; it is also, alas! 
a more painful one. We would evade it with others, 
if we might. Yet the friend to whom the words were 
addressed faced it then and afterward. There had 
lately been much talk in the air of Nihilists — Lord 
Beaconsfield's last speech was on the Tsar's assas- 
sination — and tales were told of the torture inflict- 
ed on them by the Russian Government to force 
them to confess. The agony he himself endured 
was such, he meant to say, as must have secured 
from him, had he been a Nihilist, an acknowledg- 
ment of guilt. 

"Death must be faced boldly." All his life he had, 
in one mood and another, thought and written of 
death. 

"When we are young we think not only ourselves, 
but all about us, are immortal. Until the arrow has 
struck a victim on our own hearth, death is merely 
an unmeaning word. There are few, even among 
those least susceptible of thought and emotion, in 
whose hearts and minds the first death in the family 
does not act as a powerful revelation of the mysteries 
of life and of their own being; and youth, gay and 
light-hearted youth, is taught for the first time to re- 
gret and to fear," 

But regrets and fears may fret and hamper a spirit 

169 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

that needs the spur to present duty; and, at that pass, 
he declares: "One should never think of death, one 
should think of life — that is the real piety." 

Not that the greatest activity will always be an 
anodyne for the heart's outreaching. So it happens 
that, in Lothair, Disraeli put into the mouths of the 
mature man and the neophyte alike the language of 
the seeker. 

"I was a Parliamentary Christian," says the 
Cardinal, "till despondency and study, and ceaseless 
thought and prayer, and the divine will, brought me 
to light and rest." 

And young Lothair: "Life would be perfect if it 
would only last. But it will not last; and what then? 
He could not reconcile interest in this life with the 
conviction of another and an eternal one. It seemed to 
him that men could have only one thought and one 
occupation — the future, and preparation for it. What 
they called reality appeared to him more vain and 
nebulous than the scenes and sights of sleep. And 
he had had that conviction. Had he it now? Yes, 
he had it now, but modified, perhaps. He was not 
so confident as he was a few months ago that he could 
be ushered by a Jesuit from his deathbed to the so- 
ciety of St. Michael and all angels. There might 
be long processes of initiation, intermediate states 
of higher probation and refinement. . . . When 
millions of years appeared to be necessary to ma- 
ture the crust of a rather insignificant planet, it 
might be presumption in man to assume that his 
soul, though immortal, was to reach its final 

170 




Photograph by H . W . Taunt & Co., Oxford. 

THE EARL OF BEACONSFIELD, K. G. 
From a ijliotograph taken in the 'seventies. 



THE LAST ILLNESS 

destination regardless of all the influence of time and 
space." 

Purgatorial, truly, are the fires by which man's 
faith and patience are tried all his life through. And 
at the end of all searchings, it is — faith and patience 
still. So he, too, said: "The great secret — we can 
not penetrate that with all our philosophy. Truth 
is veiled; but, like the Shekinah over the tabernacle, 
the veil is of dazzling light." 

"I had rather live, but I am not afraid to die." This 
was the only profession of faith uttered by the dying 
statesman — a Parliamentary leader in the last act of 
death. The drowsiness of the last hours gradually 
became a stupor; and at about two o'clock in the 
morning of Tuesday, April 19th, Lord Rowton, Lord 
Barrington, the three physicians, the nurses and 
body-servants were gathered round the great gladi- 
ator of so many a mortal combat. Lord Rowton and 
Lord Barrington clasped the right hand, while Dr. 
Kidd held the left, noting, by the action of the pulse, 
the reluctant ebb of life. Then, a quarter of an hour 
before his heart ceased to beat, a strangely affecting 
movement of the dying man was observed by those 
two devoted political friends — the most devoted man 
ever had. The Minister, his ministering over, half- 
raised himself from his recumbent posture, and 
stretched himself out, as his wont was when rising 
to reply in debate. Then his lips moved; but no words 
came to the acutely listening ears about him. Only 
Death heard; that adversary the first he had ever 
failed to defeat. Now at last even he must pay 

171 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

forfeit for Adam's fault. He heard perhaps the 
division bell as he sank back supine: and knew it for 
a knell. "O eloquent, just, and mighty Death," the 
words of Walter Raleigh surge back to mind, "whom 
none could advise thou hast persuaded." 



172 



BOOK II 

HIS LETTERS, BOOKS, AND PUBLIC 

LIFE 



BOOK II 

HIS LETTERS, BOOKS, AND PUBLIC 

LIFE 

"I THINK the situation will suit." So wrote Dis- 
raeli to Mrs. Austen in the July of 1826, in acceptance 
of her invitation to him to be her and 
" her husband's companion in a tour in 
Switzerland and Italy. 

His first foreign travel had been in Germany,, 
where he made a short stay in the companionship — 
renewed in later and longer travels — of Mr. William 
Meredith. This second change was necessitated by 
the nervous breakdown that followed the production 
of the first three volumes of Vivian Grey and his abor- 
tive connection with the Star Cliamher. His first sight 
of the South must have been further enlivened and 
endeared to him by the presence of these two particu- 
larly kind friends, Mr. and Mrs. Benjamin Austen, 
who were neighbors of the Disraelis in Bloomsbury 
and the most serviceable observers of Benjamin's 
early years. The travelers left England on August 
4, 1826. A most interesting article went to the 
Quarterly Review sixty-one years later from a writer 
who had before him the diary kept by Mrs. Austen 
on the journey. This lady, the daughter of a gentle- 

175 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

man named Rickett, residing at Oundle, in Northamp- 
tonshire, became, in her youth and remarkable 
beauty, the wife of Benjamin Austen, a London so- 
licitor in large practise. She was a woman of many 
accomplishments, and of a few more years than his 
own; and Disraeli, who loved youth in men but was 
greatly drawn to maturity in women, at once formed 
with her a friendship which conferred on him instant 
favors — this journey to Italy, for example — and upon 
her a lasting commemoration. Perhaps he counted 
upon his future to make the recompense that he then 
had no means to make, and that it has made abun- 
dantly. We seem to have a hint of the kind in a light 
word of advice to her to keep his letters; which would 
be of value yet, he explained, if he became as famous 
as he intended. Five days were passed in Paris and, 
after posting through France, the party arrived at 
Geneva, Disraeli keenly alert to all things, including 
French cookery and the Burgundy in which he took 
as much delight as a hero of George Meredith's might, 
attributing to it the inspirations of generous talk. 
Byron's boatman was a feature of Geneva, and Dis- 
raeli lay back in a boat on the Lake taking in impres- 
sions, afterward reproduced in Yenetia, of storm- 
clouds — among men and in the heavens. From that 
very boat had Byron himself witnessed the thunder 
and lightning; they seemed to Disraeli to be seeing it 
together; and that was a link which must last in his 
case, he having a most faithful nature. Probably he 
never became aware of the verse that Aubrey de Vere, 
then in an Irish nursery, wrote amid the same scenes 

176 



EARLY TRAVELS 

years later, but it must have come very near to ex- 
pressing his own mood: 

For we the mighty mountain-tops have trod 
Both in the glow of sunset and sunrise, 
And lightened by the moon of southern skies. 
The snow-white torrent of the thundering flood 
We two have watched together. In the wood 
We two have felt the warm, tears dim our eyes 
While zephyrs softer than an infant's sighs 
Ruffled the light air of our solitude 

O Earth, maternal Earth, and thou, O Heaven, 

And Night, first-born, who now, even now, dost waken 

The host of stars, thy constellated train ! 

Tell me if those can ever be forgiven, 

Those abject, who together have partaken 

These Sacraments of Nature and in vain ! 

Disraeli's commune with Byron, later to take literary 
form, had its instant effect on his habits, even upon 
his costume. He ordered Eastern dress, and he 
sighed for Eastern travel. It was to come in due 
course. For the present, however, he must be con- 
tent to cross the Simplon into Italy. The party 
paused at Milan, still fragrant with memories of its 
great Archbishop, St. Charles Borromeo, whose name 
and fame were to be made familiar in England by 
Disraeli's future friend, and the prototype of two of 
his "characters" — Cardinal Manning. Picture gal- 
leries were seen with a rather conventional eye, and 
then Venice was entered. All these cities seem to 
have especial relation to Disraeli the cosmopolitan. 
They had harbored Disraelis in the past, or they were 

to become the scenes of episodes in his own life or in 
13 177 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

his novels, or they were to be affected by his states- 
maneraft. Some one of the many men who composed 
that one man, citizen of the world as he was, had a 
destined home in each place that was visited. The 
Past, the Present, or the Future, called to him from 
the very stones, and in Venice most of all. There had 
his race found a home, in that republic of liberty, 
where Catholic zealots practised charity to those who 
were not of their number — "Other sheep I have, 
which are not of this fold." He went into the ghetto, 
where his fathers had foregathered, wearing on their 
gaberdines the yellow O — of which he was incon- 
gruously reminded in later years by the bookplate of 
Lord Ormonde, with its capital letter printed in 
orange — and there he still found children of his race, 
with whom he talked — daughters of Israel to whom 
he brought morning offerings of fruit and flowers. 
The quays of Venice, the most cosmopolitan in the 
world in their traditions, signaled to him. 

All her waters quiver 
With his fair image facing him for ever. 

Like his own — very much his own — Contarini Flem- 
ing, he saw his Southern face constantly repeated in 
the faces about him. "My Venetian countenance," 
says Contarini Fleming of his own, contrasting it with 
the Northern visages of his two brothers. He meets 
a procession from St. Mark's; they come swinging 
their censers and singing; and "You have been long 
expected" is the burden of their song. Of the resem- 
blance between Disraeli and many a Venetian there 

178 



EARLY TRAVELS 

could be no doubt; his dress itself, even in the later 
days, had no English look about it; and flitting vis- 
itors to Brighton, fancying a facial resemblance, gave 
the name of Disraeli to the North Italian seller 
of brandy-snaps upon the Brighton beach in the early 
'seventies. In 1900, after Disraeli had gone to his 
fathers, and when a new generation faced a new cen- 
tury, I found myself confronted in St. Mark's with 
Disraeli's double — in face, in figure, I imagined in 
temperament. He was a canon of St. Mark's, and, in 
his stall, even while the Mass proceeded, he appeared 
to be an onlooker. In the Piazza at night he passed 
through the gaily decorous throng unseeing: neither 
the world nor the Church gave its stamp to a counte- 
nance which yet, like Disraeli's own, seemed made for 
mobility. 

Disraeli's own first impressions of St. Mark's, its 
Square, and "the tall campanile red in the sun," now 
seen no more, the flagstaffs and the populace, are pre- 
served for us in Contarini Fleming. "I hastened," Con- 
tarini records, "to the Place of St. Mark. It was 
crowded and illuminated. Three gorgeous flags 
waved on the mighty staffs, which once bore the 
standards of Candia and Cyprus and the Morea. The 
coffee-houses were full, and gay parties, seated on 
chairs in the open air, listened to the music of mil- 
itary bands, while they refreshed themselves with 
confectionery so rich and fanciful that it excites the 
admiration of all travelers" — confectionery which 
Disraeli and Contarini Fleming in common afterward 
discovered in Turkey to be Oriental: confectionery, 

179 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

alas! long since ousted from beneath those otherwise 
still happy colonnades. 'The variety of costumes," 
continues this double narrative, written in days when 
costume was still worn by the lower and some of the 
middle classes in Venice, "was also great. ... A 
few days before my arrival, the Austrian squadron 
had carried into Venice a Turkish ship and two Greek 
vessels which had violated the neutrality. Their 
crews now mingled with the crowd. I beheld for the 
first time the haughty and turbaned Ottoman, sitting 
cross-legged on a carpet under a colonnade, sipping 
his coffee, and smoking a long chibouk, and the 
Greeks with their small red caps, their high foreheads 
and arched eyebrows." The day happened to be a fes- 
tival of the Church: hence the especial gaiety of the 
scene — a scene "pervaded with an air of romance and 
refinement compared with which the glittering dissi- 
pation of Paris, even in its liveliest and most graceful 
hours, assumes a character alike coarse and common- 
place." 

From Venice, Disraeli proceeded to Florence in 
the traveling-carriage of the Austens, making, by the 
way, in true Byronian discipleship, a pilgrimage to 
the tomb of Petrarch at Arqua and to the prison of 
Tasso at Ferrara. In Florence itself, Contarini Flem- 
ing, we may remember, formed the opinion that he 
scarcely knew another place "he would prefer as a 
residence." (This, long before the days of Landor and 
the Brownings.) "The character of Art, both from 
ancient associations and its present possessions, is 
forcibly impressed upon this city. It is full of inven- 

180 



EARLY TRAVELS 

tion. You can not stroll fifty yards, you can not enter 
a church or palace, without being favorably reminded 
of the power of human thought. It is a famous me- 
morial of the genius of the Italian middle ages, when 
the mind of man was in one of its springtides, and 
when we mark so frequently what at the present day 
we too much underrate, the influence of individual 
character. In Florence the monuments are not only 
of great men, but of the greatest. You do not gaze 
upon the tomb of an author who is merely a great 
master of composition, but of one who formed the 
language. The illustrious astronomer is not the dis- 
coverer of a planet, but the revealer of the whole 
celestial machinery." 

The return journey was made by Genoa, Turin, the 
Mont Cenis, and Paris again, London being reached 
at the end of October. Those three months of the 
year 1826 were ever memorable to Disraeli, who could 
not rest until he was again en voyage in 1830 — this 
time on that journey to Spain, Greece, and the East 
of which his Home Letters tell the stirring tale. 
The Alhambra might put into the background of his 
memory the Ducal Palace as "a barbarous though 
picturesque building"; and the paintings of Murillo — 
grandiose yet also peasant-loving like himself — might 
all but banish the memory of the Fra Bartolommeos 
he had particularly admired in Florence. Nothing 
in his first journey was so adventurous as the visit 
he paid, during his second, to Corfu, in order to vol- 
unteer into the Turkish army under the Grand Vizier, 
Reschid Pasha, then suppressing an insurrection of 

181 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

the Albanians — Disraeli himself, by the way, wore an 
Albanian costume on the Susan, his friend Clay's 
yacht. Nothing that he had before experienced was 
quite so weird as his visit to Kalio Bey at Arta, the 
only occasion (and we have his own frank record of 
it) of his becoming drunk with wine; nothing so daz- 
zlingly ambitious as that dream at Athens which took 
shape in a letter to Mrs. Austen: "Had I £25,000 to 
throw away, I might, I really believe, increase my 
headaches by wearing a crown." But impressions of 
first travel, like impressions of first love, are inefface- 
able. Greater wonders may be in store; but they are 
subservient in a measure to the magic of the earlier 
experience. What Disraeli owed to this dear friend, 
Mrs. Austen, he never ceased to remember; and long 
afterward he praised the Fates that allowed him to 
confer on his old friend's nephew. Sir Austen Layard 
— though Layard was no formal follower of his in 
politics — the honors and riches of high ambassadorial 
rank. 

To Mrs. Benjamin Austen. 

' ' Bradenham, 

'' March 7th, 18S0. 

"I am desirous of quitting England that I may 
lead even a more recluse life than I do at present, and 
release myself from perpetual commisera- 
tion. When I was in town last I consulted 
many eminent men. I received from them no consola- 
tion. I grieve to say my hair grows very badly; and, 
I think, more gray, which, I can unfeignedly declare, 
occasions me more anguish than even the prospect 
of death." 

182 



A FRIEND IN NEED 

A stay at Lyme Regis in the November of 1829 
liad left Disraeli still "desperately ill"; and the life 
to which, one supposes from the concluding passage 
of this letter to Mrs. Austen, he was but lightly at- 
tached was even given up for lost. He complained of a 
"stupor" which made literary composition impossi- 
ble; it did more at times; for he speaks of sleeping 
sixteen hours out of the twenty-four, and of passing 
"a week nearly in a trance from digitalis," and had 
giddiness in the head and palpitation of the heart — 
a formula from which we may gather that he suffered 
extreme feebleness and inertia from digitalis poison- 
ing — though digitalis, as we now know, strengthens, 
not weakens, the heart. "Your deceased though sin- 
cere friend" was the signature to this letter. 

To Benjamin Austen he wrote: "Let me express 
my grateful sense of your unparalleled kindness, and 
A Friend in pardon me if I add that I think better of 
Need. myself for having excited so warm a 

friendship in the heart of an honorable and excellent 
man." 

That was Disraeli's thanksgiving to the husband 
of Mrs. Austen for the gift, coming through his hand, 
which enabled Disraeli to start on his Eastern tour 
in the June of 1830. 

This lady outlived her younger friend, dying 
in 1887 at the age of ninety-two. 

"My letters are shorter than Napoleon's, but I love 
you better than he did Josephine," wrote Disraeli to 

183 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

his sister, August 4, 1833. I have heard it alleged 
against Disraeli, as his one marked deficiency, that 
Sarah ^^ ^^^ ^^^ ^^^^ women. Certainly he did 

Disraeli. not love them promiscuously; and ''love," 

in inverted commas, the fancy of passion that 
passes vi^ith passion, he distrusted utterly. Hence we 
have him as very much of an onlooker even among 
women. Love of sister was the serenely ruling feel- 
ing of his early life; love of wife of his later; and if 
there are few series of letters so wittily informatory 
of current events in the London of the 'thirties as 
those which Disraeli devotedly sent to his sister, 
"Dearest Sa," so also nothing is much more touching 
than his recurrence in the last script of his old age 
to the scenes and incidents of his and her childhood 
at Bradenham. "A thousand loves" he sends to her 
in youth; and, half a century later, in Myra Ferrars 
she blooms again. If women do not see how interest- 
ing he made them in his books — wBat allies as well 
as what lovers; if they do not imagine themselves 
represented in the persons of his wife and sister, who 
stood to him for the sex; if they do not enjoy and 
share those honors and accept the constancy of a su- 
preme man to one woman as the best homage he can 
render to all Womanhood; — they must be held most 
justly, even when most profusely, reproached for the 
insensibility of their sex, in Elizabethan love-songs. 
That Disraeli knew love as a consuming passion, can 
any one who has read Henrietta Temple, or read men, 
doubt? That the man of affairs in him — of affairs 
in the large, not the light sense — fought against love 

184 



SARAH DISRAELI 

as a mere passion for himself is his own avowal. He 
kept his wings unsinged; and there is not a breath 
against him as a light lover. His sonnet to Lady 
Mahon, though her husband did not welcome it, would 
not now be held to be even an indiscretion; and any 
allusions we have of his to the charms of ladies he met 
upon his travels — Mrs. Considine and the Misses 
Brackenbury — are enough to show him impression- 
able but also self-repressing. Once he speaks to his 
sister of a woman who has, alas! the power to make 
him melancholy; and once again, in tender days, he 
asks her how she would like as a sister-in-law Lady 

, with a well-filled purse. It was a hint of proud 

possibilities: no more. His intimates say that he 
never had a refusal; and under cover of that state- 
ment may be forgotten the gossip in the years of his 
widowerhood which thus associated his name with 
that of the widowed Lady Chesterfield. 

Sarah Disraeli was born in the Adelphi in 1802, the 
eldest child of her parents. A charming girl, all 
records of her pronounce her to be; and early in her 
girlhood she began that unselfish adoration of her 
brother, two years her junior, which suffered no 
abatement in its fervor all the days of her life. A 
devoted daughter, she leaves the impresssion that 
even her father was dearer to her because he was 
the father also of Ben. Familiar is the story of her 
service to that father when, in 1840, his sight serious- 
ly failed him. "Amid this partial darkness, I am not 
left without a distant hope and a present consolation; 
and to HER who has so often lent me the light of her 

185 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

eyes, the intelligence of her voice, and the careful 
work of her hand, the author must ever owe the 'debt 
immense' of paternal gratitude." A year later he said 
of his Amenities of Literature: "The author is denied 
the satisfaction of reading a single line of it. It has 
been confided to one whose eyes unceasingly peruse 
the volume for him who can never read, and whose 
eager hand traces the thought ere it vanish in 
the thinking." One imagines the reluctance of the 
modest amanuensis at this, almost her rebellion. 
One feels the emotion of both father and daughter 
when such passages were dictated, and the glorified 
type of the her and the one was insisted upon. Even- 
handed are the Fates; and Milton, whose genius Isaac 
Disraeli envied, might have envied Isaac Disraeli his 
daughter. 

In her earlier twenties, Miss Sarah Disraeli be- 
came affianced to Mr. William Meredith, a young man 
of good parts and of great expectations. Her father 
and brother first met him at rather famous dinners 
given in London by his uncle. This was Mr. William 
Meredith, senior, a retired contractor of large for- 
tune, a bachelor, who spent thousands of pounds upon 
the endowment of Mr. Thomas Taylor, the Platonist, 
and his translation of Aristotle. The elder Meredith 
died in 1831, bequeathing his substance to his nephew, 
who, as chance had it, was at that very moment dying 
of fever while absent with Benjamin Disraeli in the 
East. A note supplied to the Home Letters by Mr. 
Ealph Disraeli says: 

"The untimely death of his friend Meredith, bring- 

186 



BULWER-LYTTON AS BEST FRIEND 

ing bitter grief to others than the travelers, occurred 
at Cairo. This sad event delayed my brother's de- 
parture for England." 

The Disraelis did not parade their griefs in public, 
or it might have been added that Benjamin Disraeli 
for years. went unreconciled to that loss; and that it 
affected his spirit till the end of his days. That 
sister, who thenceforth went widowed to the end of 
her earthly days, died in December, 1859, at the age 
of fifty-seven, in one of the Ailsa Park Villas at Twick- 
enham, wheie, tending the flowers of her small gar- 
den, and devoting her spare means to the service of 
the poor, she lived a nun-like life, enlivened by the 
visits of her brother. Him she lived to see the Leader 
of the House of Commons, the debater who did indeed 
"floor them all." She lies in the cemetery at Willes- 
den, and over her ashes stands a Maltese cross, which 
bears the letters "I.H.S.," and the words "Thy will be 
done." Another and a later inscription is hers; that, 
oftener seen, which fitly occupies the dedication page 
of the Home Letters: "To the memory of the Dear 
Sister to whom so many of these letters were ad- 
dressed." 

"Your father's conversation always conveyed to 
me new and productive ideas, and I reckon him 
Buiwer- among the two or three persons whose 

Lytton as minds influenced the development of my 

Best Friend. 

own," wrote Disraeli to Robert, Earl of 
Lytton. A grain of salt must commonly be swallowed 
with what is said about sons to fathers, and particu- 

187 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

larly about fathers to sons. All the same, this friend- 
ship with Bulwer was one of Disraeli's early bits of 
good luck. He owed its beginning to his father; and 
it was perhaps partly in his mind when he spoke 
somewhere of the advantages it is to a man to have 
a distinguished father. Perhaps, also, when he wrote 
a much misquoted passage about the doom of friends 
who married for "love" — love in quotation marks — he 
had an eye on Bulwer, whose marriage with Miss 
Rosina Wheeler realized Bulwer's mother's fearful 
incredulity as to the possibility of a perennial infatu- 
ation. Invitations from the newly married pair at 36 
Hertford Street came to Disraeli on his first setting 
up as a man about town in 1832. In February, that 
year, as something of a debutant, he described "a very 
brilliant reunion,''^ at which he talked to Lord Mul- 
grave, saw Lord Strangford, the father of his future 
friend, George Smythe; admired Count D'Orsay, 
whom he had then to label for Bradenham "the 
famous Parisian dandy," but whom he was soon to 
share with Lady Blessington and others as "our dear- 
est." Albany Fonblanque, Charles Villiers, Mrs. 
Gore, and L. E, L. were also there. A little later, at 
a dinner, he found Bulwer "more sumptuous and fan- 
tastic than ever"; and we hear more of the hostess: 
"Mrs. B. was a blaze of jewels and looked like. Juno; 
only, instead of a peacock, she had a dog in her lap, 
called Fairy, and not bigger than a bird-of-paradise, 
and quite as brilliant." That was Disraeli's first time 
of kissing, too, with the open-brimmed champagne- 
glass: a saucer mounted on a pedestal, he says of it. 

188 



BULWER-LYTTON AS BEST FRIEND 

At another "really brillant soiree^^ there, that same 
season, he was introduced to his future fate, Mrs. 
Wyndham Lewis; and there Lady Stepney paid him 
"ludicrous compliments" and asked him what he 
thought of Leonardo da Vinci — ludicrous again. 
Moore, too, was there; and Lord Mulgrave once more. 
The season over, Bulwer went down to Bradenham 
with Disraeli, and he too said "there was no place 
like it," with many other gratifying things, pleasing 
son and father alike by saying to the son: "I tell you 
where your father beats us all — in style." The young 
men are next heard of together in Bath — lions, of 
course. Invitations fluttered in; they "preferred the 
relaxation of their own society." When they went 
to one public ball they were "quite mobbed": -Disraeli 
knew the sensation very well later in London draw- 
ing-rooms; but he had his first and still sweet experi- 
ence in England's, not London's, West. "I like Bath 
very much," he candidly said. 

Back in London, he dines with Bulwer " 'to meet 
some truffles' — very agreeable company." Mrs. 
Wheeler, Mrs. Bulwer's mother, was there, "some- 
thing between Jeremy Bentham and Meg Merrilies — 
very clever, but awfully revolutionary. She poured 
forth all her Systems" — and Sir Austin Feverel not 
at hand. If Robert, the future Viceroy, was brought 
up on them, they did not tend disastrously; but while 
the lady "advocated the rights of woman, Bulwer 
abused system-mongers and the sex," while Rosina 
did decidedly the politic — usually different from the 
political — thing: "played with her dog." In 1838 he 

189 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

stayed with Bulwer at the Priory, Acton; and in the 
autumn of 1850, when Bulwer had become Lytton, 
and Knebworth had been entered upon, he went down 
to the author of The Last of the Barons there. 

"He is a real Baron," Disraeli then wrote, "though 
he will, I think, be the first, not the last of his race." 
In the sense in which the lesser is merged in the 
larger, he was the last of the Barons too; for Disraeli, 
continuing the friendship of one generation to an- 
other, gave the son — his father's son — the Viceroy- 
alty that earned an earldom. Bulwer's influence 
never made a spiritualist of Disraeli. Pressed by his 
friends to go to see some manifestations of animal 
magnetism, Disraeli conceded: "Decidedly I will 
come, if you are serious in saying that a man walks on 
the ceiling." 

When Disraeli had stood three or four years 
earlier for Marylebone, some one was supposed to ask 
him "on what, in offering himself, he intended to 
stand," and he was reported to reply: "On my head." 
He liked the invention well enough; and, had the 
pencil of caricaturist been busied about him then, we 
can imagine the sort of topsy-turvy figures to be add- 
ed to the gallery that belongs throughout rather to 
ribaldry than to humor. Bulwer did not give the 
guarantee; and Disraeli, therefore, never went — 
where Stanhope, Strangford, Maidstone, and others 
of their friends flocked — to M. de Dupotet's in 
Orchard Street. 

"All London is mad with animal magnetism,". 
Dizzy (keeping his head) wrote in the first year of 

190 



BUI.WER-LYTTON AS BEST FRIEND 

the Victorian era — a madness which, under changing 
ways and means — especially means — of evoking it, 
endures into the Edwardian. Bulwer's recurrence to 
Rosicrucian mysteries is indicated in his Zanoni; and 
the following reading of Disraeli, arrived at by a 
process of divination known as geomancy, was found 
among his father's papers by Robert Lytton — happy 
alike in its reading of character and its forecast of 
events. The signature E. L. B. seems at first glance 
to indicate- that it was cast before Bulwer changed 
his name to Lytton in the late 'thirties, and therefore, 
as is also internally implied, before Disraeli's mar- 
riage in 1839. But the careful biographer prints the 
date as September 3, 1860. 

JUDEX. 

"A singularly fortunate figure: a strongly marked 
influence toward the acquisition of coveted objects. 

"He would gain largely by marriage in the pecuni- 
ary sense, which makes a crisis in his life. 

"He would have a peaceful hearth, to his own 
taste, and leaving him free for ambitious objects. 

"In honors he has not only luck, but a felicity far 
beyond the most favorable prospects that could be 
reasonably anticipated from his past career, his re- 
cent position, or his personal endowments. 

"He will leave a higher name than I should say 
his intellect quite warrants, or than would now be 
conjectured. 

"He will certainly have very high honors. 

191 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

Whether official or in rank, high as compared with 
his birth or actual achievements. 

"He has a temperament that finds pleasure in 
what belongs to social life. He has not the reserve 
common to literary men. 

"He has considerable veneration, and will keep 
well with Church and State; not merely from policy, 
but from sentiment and instinct. 

"His illnesses will be few and quick; but his last 
illness may be lingering. 

"He is likely to live to old age, — the close of his 
career much honored. 

"He will be to the last largely before the public: 
much feared by his opponents; but greatly beloved, 
not only by those immediately about him, but by 
large numbers to whom he is personally unknown. 

"He will die, whether in or out of office, in an 
exceptionally high position: greatly lamented; and 
surrounded to the end by all the magnificent plan- 
etary influences of a propitious Jupiter. 

"No figure I have drawn more surprises me than 
this: it is so completely opposed to what I myself 
should have augured, not only from the rest of his 
career, but from my knowledge of the man. 

"He will bequeath a repute out of all proportion to 
the opinion now entertained of his intellect by those 
who think most highly of it. Greater honors far than 
he has yet acquired are in store for him. 

"His enemies, though active, are not persevering. 

"His official friends, though not ardent, will yet 
minister to his success." 

192 



i 



BULWER-LYTTON AS BEST FRIEND 

The Earl of Lytton's comment is: "The geomantic 
conclusions were not suggested by my father's views, 
but in glaring opposition to them. The event, which 
verified his divination, contradicted his judgment." 
And he speaks of the disesteem in which Disraeli was 
held "as merely a spiriting charlatan" by "mediocre 
men" for many years; but we have to remember, 
though the romance be lessened, that in 1860 — if that 
be the document's true date — Disraeli had been mar- 
ried for cwenty-one years, had led the Tory party, 
and been twice Chancellor of the Exchequer. 

Disraeli at the age of twenty-six, traveling for his 
health, had been absent from England for about five 
months, when he reached Constantinople on the last 
day of November, 1830. He had been depressed about 
his slow progress toward health; but at first sight 
of Constantinople he owned: "I feel an excitement 
I thought was dead." A month later his experiences 
were given in the following letter to Bulwer, who was 
already an author with the ear of the town, and who 
was to go to Parliament a few months later for St. 
Ives. Bulwer, whose powers of note-writing were the 
most prodigious ever known, had been in correspond- 
ence with Isaac Disraeli about men and books — 
Fuller's works and the character of Cardinal Mazarin; 
and Disraeli the younger, slipping in, was rewarded 
by praises of Vivian Grey and Captain Popanilla. A 
gift from Disraeli of Turkish tobacco — the only pipe- 
tobacco Bulwer ever smoked — followed; and then be- 
gan a personal acquaintance which between such 
men was certain to develop quickly into friendship. 
14 193 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

Bulwer read The Young Duke in manuscript, and put 
Disraeli out of love with it by objections that he took 
with more good-nature than is common under those 
critical conditions. A few months later he was him- 
self able to regard his book with as aloof and unpa- 
ternal an eye as Bulwer's even. "I don't care a jot 
about The Young Duke,^^ he declared. "I never staked 
any fame on it. It may take its chance." This he 
wrote home when absent on the journey which yielded 
also the following letter to Edward Lytton Bulwer 
(first Lord Lytton): 

" CONSTANTINOPIiB, 

" December 27th, 1830. 

"My dear BuLT\rER: In spite of the extraordinary 
times and engrossing topics on which we have fallen, 
I flatter myself that you will be glad to hear of my ex- 
istence, and know that it is in a state not quite so 
forlorn as when I last had the pleasure of enjoying 
your society. Since then I have traveled through 
Spain, Greece, and Albania, and am now a resident in 
this famous city. 

"I can not easily express how much I was de- 
lighted with the first country. I no longer wonder at 
the immortality of Cervantes; and I perpetually de- 
tected, in the picturesque and al fresco life of his 
countrymen, the sources of his inspiration. The Al- 
hambra, and other Saracenic remains, the innumer- 
able Murillos, and, above all, their olla podridas, de- 
lighted me in turn. I arrived at Malta time enough 
to name the favorite horse for the races, Paul Cliford; 
and I have since learnt, by a letter at this place, 
that he won the plate. While at the little military 
hothouse, I heard that Albania was in a flaming in- 
surrection; and, having always had a taste for cam- 

194 



BULWER-LYTTON AS BEST FRIEND 

paigning, I hurried off with a couple of friends to offer 
our services to the Grand Vizier. 

"We found the insurrection, by the time of our 
arrival, nearly crushed. And so we turned our mil- 
itary trip into a visit of congratulation at headquar- 
ters. I must reserve for our meeting any account of 
our visit. I certainly passed at Yanina ten of the 
most extraordinary days of my life; and often wished 
you had been my companion. 

"Of all the places I have yet visited, Athens most 
completely realized all I could have wished. The place 
requires no associations to render it one of the most 
delightful in the globe. I am not surprised that the 
fine taste of the dwellers in this delicate land should 
have selected the olive for their chosen tree, and the 
violet for their favorite flower. 

"I confess to you that my Turkish prejudices 
are very much confirmed by my residence in Turkey. 
The life of this people greatly accords with my taste, 
which is naturally somewhat indolent and melan- 
choly, and I do not think it would disgust you. To 
repose on voluptuous ottomans, and smoke superb 
pipes; daily to indulge in the luxuries of a bath which » 
requires half a dozen attendants for its perfection; 
to court the air in a carved caique, by shores which 
are a perpetual scene; and to find no exertion greater 
than a canter on a Barb; this is, I think, a far more 
sensible life than all the bustle of clubs, all the boring 
of drawing-rooms, and all the coarse vulgarity of our 
political controversies. And all this, I assure you, is, 
without any coloring or exaggeration, the life which 
may be here commanded — a life accompanied by a 
thousand sources of calm enjoyment, and a thousand 
modes of mellowed pleasure, which it would weary 
you to relate, and which I leave to your own lively 
imagination. 

195 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

"I can say nothing about our meeting, but pray 
that it may be sooner than I can expect. I send you 
a tobacco bag, that you may sometimes remember me. 
If you have leisure to write me a line, anything direct- 
ed to Messrs. Hunter & Ross, Malta, will be forwarded 
to whatever part of the Levant I may reside in. 

"I mend slowly, but mend. The seasons have 
greatly favored me. Continual heat, and even here, 
where the winter is proverbially cold, there is a sum- 
mer sky. Remember me most kindly to your brother, 
and believe me, ever, my dear Bulwer, 

"Your most faithful, 

"Benj. Disraeli. 

"P. 8. — I have just got through a pile of Gali- 
gnanVs. What a confusion and what an excellent 
pantomime ' Lord Mayor's Day; or, Harlequin 
Brougham'! Oh, for the days of Aristophanes, or 

Foote, or even Scaramouch! D n the Licenser! 

"D." 

People in search of the shadows which coming 
events are said to cast before them may find them 
falling on this paper in lines that spell out >'my 
Turkish prejudices." He wrote to Edward Lytton 
Bulwer (first Lord Lytton): 

[1832.] 
* * » * * 

"It seemed to me that the barriers of my life were 
all simultaneously falling — friendship with the rest. 
But you, too, have suffered; and will therefore sym- 
pathize with one of too irritable a temperament, 
whose philosophy generally arrives too late. 

^^Our friendship, my dear Bulwer, has already 
stood many a test. If I analyze the causes of its 
strength, I would ascribe them, in some degree at 

196 



BULWER-LYTTON AS BEST FRIEND 

least, to a warm heart on my part and a generous 
nature upon yours. 

"Then let this friendship never dissolve. For my 
heart shall never grow cold to you, and be yours al- 
ways indulgent to 

"Your affectionate friend, 

"B. D." 

"The friendship never did dissolve," writes the 
son, "because, upon both sides, it was based on a well- 
grounded confidence in the fine and sterling qualities 
to which it owed its origin. But time and circum- 
stance gradually diminished their intercourse with- 
out abating their esteem. They had strong opinions 
and sympathies in common, and appeared for a time 
to be traveling the same road. Both were throwing off 
in works of imagination the thoughts and feelings 
suggested by a keen observation of the world around 
them. Both had set their hearts on getting into Par- 
liament, that they might play their part in the one 
grand arena of politics. Both were fighting an un- 
befriended battle, and owed nothing in their literary 
life to the support of a clique, or in public life to the 
favor of a party. Both were successful in the double 
career they adopted. But the highest success of one 
was in politics, and that of the other was in literature. 
Here was the difference which, in spite of the parallel 
in their lives, led them, as time went on, into divergent 
paths. It may be discerned in the earliest writings 
of Disraeli that his master ambition was to become a 
power in the State. With all his love of letters, the de- 
sire to take his place among the rulers of the world so 

197 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

vastly predominated that his ultimate end in litera- 
ture was to use it as a ladder to political life. His 
native indolence, his narrow means, his pecuniary 
difficulties, his isolated position, his repeated checks 
— all were impotent to resist the indomitable will and 
persevering g^enius which carried him at length, 
amidst unusual acclaim, to the summit of his aspira- 
tions. With my father the passion for letters pre- 
ponderated. And whereas literature was but an ap- 
pendage to the political career of Disraeli, politics 
were only the appendage to the literary labors of his 
friend. Thus, when afterward they came together as 
colleagues in the same Cabinet, it was the reunion of 
persons who had been following distinctly separate 
vocations, and had contracted dissimilar habits of 
mind. The cordiality and the sentiment remained; 
and in their political principles they had more in com- 
mon with each other than either of them had with the 
mass of those around them." 

This last allusion illustrates, and takes us on to, 
the association of Bulwer, then a nominal Radical, 
afterward a Tory-Radical, with Disraeli, who was, 
from the first, what Bulwer became. In 1832 Bulwer, 
anxious to get Disraeli into Parliament for Disraeli's 
sake, and perhaps a little for his own ("Politics are a 
dull trade," says a third novelist, and politicians dull 
tradesmen for the most part uncongenial enough to 
a Man of Feeling), was a dangerous intermediary be- 
tween Disraeli and the conventional senator, as 
events proved. 



198 



CLUBS AND CLUBS 



To the Secretary of the Westminster Reform Club. 

"3 Park Street, Grosvenor Square, 
' ' January 29th [1835]. 

"Sir: Having received a letter from you this 
morning, apprising me that I am a threatened de- 
Clubs and f aulter in the matter of the Westminster 
Clubs. Club, I beg to inform you that I never en- 

tered the walls of the clubhouse but once, and that 
was with the intention of paying my admission fee 
and subscription. On that occasion I was informed 
that the secretary was absent in Ireland; and I freely 
confess to you that I was then unable to obtain any 
satisfactory evidence that the club had a bona-fide ex- 
istence. If, however, I have been acting under a mis- 
apprehension, and I am to understand that the club 
really exists, without any view of immediate dissolu- 
tion, I shall be happy to forward the check which you 
require. I am, yours, etc., 

"B. Disraeli." 

"March 8th [18S51 

"Sir: I enclose you a draft ^ for the suhi you re- 
quire, and as my engagements have not permitted me 
to avail myself of the Westminster Club, I shall feel 
obliged by your doing me the favor of withdrawing my 
name from the list of the members of the society. 

"I am, sir, yours, etc., 

"B. Disraeli." 

A standing fable, which has the excuse of passing 
as a standing joke, is this: That Disraeli was once 
a member of the Reform Club, as Gladstone had been 

' This draft the club returned. 

199 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

a member of the Carlton, Members of the two clubs 
exchange the blandishment: "We supplied your 
party with its leader." "And we yours," The genesis 
of the story is easily traced; and leads, as easily, to 
its exodus, 

"Mr. Disraeli is actually a member of the West- 
minster Reform Club, established last year in Great 
George Street, Westminster, by Messrs, Tennyson, 
Hume, and others of the Liberal party," So wrote 
an elector of Westminster to the Morning Chronicle 
of April 25, 1835; and so, since that date, have others 

■Sf 

written, time after time, with this added spice — that 
they pitted against it Disraeli's instant denial : 
"The Westminster Reform Club is a club I never 
heard of, and I never belonged to a political club in 
my life." 

"Here," says Mr, T, P. O'Connor, "is a distinct 
issue of fact — an issue which decides irrevocably in 
favor [of] or against the personal veracity of the 
persons engaged in it," That is an opinion still com- 
monly held (though for the most part with a tolerant 
indulgence) in the smoking-room of the Reform Club; 
for the goodly association, now placed in Pall Mall, 
had its first shelter in the basement and first floor of 
24 Great George Street, Westminster — a portion of 
his own residence sublet by Alderman Sir Matthew 
Wood, M.P, Clubs did not then, as now, arise fully 
equipped at each great corner: and the following 
memorandum suggests the process of a club in the 
making: 



200 



CLUBS AND CLUBS 

"Westminster Club. 

" April M, 1834. 

"The Secretary will attend at the clubhouse, 24 
Great George Street, from twelve to three each day 
till the 14th, to receive all future communications for 
admissioTi to the club." 

Such communications were not very numerous; 
and perhaps the organizers found it a little difficult 
to pay the annual rent of one thousand guineas to 
the Alderman for rent, furniture, and service. One 
of these, Disraeli's friend Henry Lytton Bulwer, who' 
had his brother's knowledge of the Radical as well as 
the Tory in Disraeli, asked him to join the Westmin- 
ster Club, probably with little explanation of its scope, 
lest the amphibious politician should refuse to be 
landed. Through the kindness of a present member 
of the Reform, and by a reference to the careful his- 
tory of the club drawn up by another member, Mr. 
Louis Fagan, I give the following entry appearing on 
page 51 of the still-preserved minute-book of the pre- 
cursor Westminster Club, and dated July 2, 1834: 

^^Resolved, That Mr. Disraeli, proposed by Mr. 
Bulwer and seconded by Dr. Elmore, should be elect- 
ed a member of the club." 

Mr. Disraeli, if he received news of his election, 
made no acknowledgment of it; for, three weeks later, 
the secretary reported that "the subscriptions of the 
following members remain still unpaid" — Disraeli's 
among them; and Henry Bulwer's, too, which sug- 
gests that perhaps he had canvassed for a club he did 

201 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

not really know much about, or that he had lost touch 
of it and no longer pressed it on Disraeli as a place 
of meeting. I note, too, that during these weeks 
Disraeli made his debut at another club — Almack's; 
and what is something to the point, made the ac- 
quaintance of Lord Lyndhurst, to whom he was imme- 
diately attracted, and who helped to draw him into 
the established ruts of party. Anyway, in the last 
month of the year the payment of the subscription — 
the condition precedent to membership — had not 
been made; and the committee carried the motion 
"That Lord Dunboyne, Mr. Disraeli, and Mr. Henry 
Lytton Bulwer be written to, informing them that the 
committee have observed by the banker's book that 
their subscriptions have not been paid, and that the 
secretary is to apprise them thereof." What Lord 
Dunboyne and Mr. Bulwer did, I do not know; but I 
never heard either of them denounced as a "defaulter" 
— the term applied, with the usual animus, to their 
comrade. He, at any rate, at once sent a check for 
fifteen guineas (a large sum for him, and one for which 
he had incurred no legal liability), stating that he had 
not been able to use the club, and requesting that his 
name should be removed from its books. This was 
done; and the committee, who probably knew more 
than we of the misunderstandings incident to the 
formation of the first membership list, resolved: 
"That the check sent by Mr. Disraeli be returned to 
him, and he be informed that the committee declines 
its acceptance, having no inclination to accept money 
from gentlemen whose engagements render them un- 

202 



CLUBS AND CLUBS 

able to avail themselves of the conveniences of the 
club." 

Thus (with a surprising pleasure to see his fifteen 
guineas again) ended Disraeli's commerce — we can 
not say connection — with a club which, since he 
would not go to it, in due course came half round the 
political compass to him, blackballing Irish Home 
Rulers under the very frowns of the counterfeit pre- 
sentment of O'Connell, one of the founders of the 
parent house. 

Two specific errors remain for exposure. "The 
Westminster Reform Club" was the name thrown at 
Disraeli at Taunton when he contested the seat in the 
spring of 1835. The reply, made with a brevity suited 
to the hustings, was : "The Westminster Reform Club 
is a club of which I never heard." The registers con- 
firm Disraeli: the club was the Westminster Club, 
not the Westminster Reform Club, when he sent his 
check: it did not change its name to the Westminster 
Reform Club, and thus declare its political character, 
till February, 1835 — only three months before the 
date of Disraeli's repudiation of any knowledge of it 
by that name. The second misstatement, originally 
made and since echoed, was that Hume was one of its 
founders — an association which was supposed to 
make clear to Disraeli the party character of the club 
and to prove continuity, on Disraeli's part, from the 
rapprochement established between him and Hume by 
the other Bulwer three years earlier. Here again the 
club books befriend Disraeli, for they show that 
Hume was not elected to the Westminster Club till 

203 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

February 7, 1835, only the day before Disraeli re- 
quested the withdrawal of his name. 

The recorders of to-day will make two leading notes 
on this transaction: the first the honorable payment 
made by Disraeli; the second its honorable return by 
the club, itself as hard-pressed as he, in sight of the 
insolvency which overtook it and taxed its members 
eleven guineas a head in the April of 1836. Yet the 
Comic Spirit shall not be grudged one last grimace. 
Mr. Sydney, presenting the old Westminster Club's 
papers to the Reform Club Library, where they now 
are, makes this comment: "You will perceive the 
curious fact that Mr. Disraeli was desirous to become 
a member, but the honor of his association was de- 
clined." 

In the early summer of- 1832 Disraeli had a hint 
of the possible elevation of Sir Thomas Baring — one 
The Scramble ^^ *^^ sitting Whig members for Wy- 
or a Seat— combe — to the House of Lords. That 

O'Connell. ^ ... . , . 

meant a vacancy which a young neighbor- 
ing politician at Bradenham House, with definite 
opinions but indefinite labels, was particularly 
anxious to fill. Disgusted by Whigs and Tories alike, 
he stood alone, the founder of a new National party. 
Into that wide-embracing fold, Tories and Radicals 
alike were invited to enter, and there were two or 
three occasions — once to Peel — when Disraeli spoke 
of himself as a "Radical," a name far less obnoxious 
to him than that of either Whig or Tory. It was a 
name which required, and got, a note of explanation; 

204 



THE SCRAMBLE FOR A SEAT 

and also demanded it as applied to him in later life 
when, as leader of the Tory party, he was yet de- 
scribed by Mr. Bernal Osborne as the "greatest Rad- 
ical in that House." In 1832 the Whigs were in the 
way: they had made Reform their cry, yet had done 
little to carry out their professions; they were, more- 
over, an oligarchy of "the great governing families," 
barring the way of political aispirants — of one polit- 
ical aspirant in particular— with no "connections." 
Disraeli had therefore a public and a personal cause 
against them. Bulwer, who may be allowed the 
credit of having liked and trusted, if he did not al- 
together understand him from the outset, made the 
most of Disraeli the Radical; the least of Disraeli the 
Tory; and, going to O'Connell and to Hume to get a 
benediction on the political Jekyll, did not breathe a 
word about the political Hyde. Hume, therefore, at 
Bulwer's request, wrote from Bryanston Square (June 
2, 1832) to Disraeli at Bradenham, as to one "pledged 
to support Reform and economy in every department 
as far as the same can be effected consistent with the 
best interests of the country" — a program com- 
mon, one supposes, to all parties, and one evidently 
based on some carefully guarded- phrasing of the can- 
didates.^ 

' As Hume's letter to Disraeli, and all the facts in connection with it, were 
made the subject of red-hot controversy some forty months later, the full 
text of it should be within easy reference of the reader : " Bryanston Square, 
June 2, 1832. Sir— As England can only reap the benefit of Reform by 
the electors doing their duty in selecting honest, independent, and talented 
men, I am much pleased to learn from our mutual friend, Mr. E. L. Bulwer, 
that you are about to offer yourself as a candidate to represent Wycombe in 
the new Parliament. I have no personal influence at that place, or I would 

205 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

To that letter of commendation Disraeli sent the 
following reply: 

To Joseph Hume, Esq., M.P. 

"Bradenham House, Wycombe, 
''June 5th, 1832. 

"Sir: I have had the honor and the gratification of 
receiving your letter this morning. Accept my sin- 
cere, my most cordial thanks. It will be my endeavor 
that you shall not repent the confidence you have 
reposed in me. 

"Believe me, sir, that if it be my fortune to be re- 
turned in the present instance to a reformed Parlia- 
ment, I shall remember with satisfaction that that 
return is mainly attributable to the interest ex- 
pressed in my success by one of the most distin- 
guished and able of our citizens. 

"I have the honor to be, sir, your obliged and 
faithful servant, "B. Disraeli." 

We come back again and again to Wycombe before 
we have done with the ugly sparrings of speech that 
attend Disraeli's getting to his place in Parliament. 
For the moment, however, we look three years ahead, 
when Disraeli contested Taunton, still as a Democrat- 
ic Tory, but bearing the oflflcial Tory label, at a by-elec- 

use it immediately in your favor ; but I should hope that the day has arrived 
when the electors will consider the qualifications of the candidates, and in the 
exercise of the franchise prove themselves worthy of the new rights they will 
obtain by the Reform. I hope the reformers will rally round you, who enter- 
tain liberal opinions in every branch of government, and are prepared to 
pledge yourself to support Reform and economy in every department as far 
as the same can be effected consistent with the best interests of the country. 
I shall only add that I shall be rejoiced to see you in the new Parliament, in 
the confidence that you will redeem your pledges, and give satisfaction to 
your constituents if they will place you there. Wishing you success in your 
canvass, I remain, your obedient servant, Joseph Hume." 

206 



THE SCRAMBLE FOR A SEAT 

tion brought about by Mr. Henry Laboucliere's ac- 
ceptance of office. Out of this electoral fight and 
defeat arose the largely retrospective O'Connell cor- 
respondence. Very ungracious as a sign of the man- 
ners of the time, it illustrates the detachment of 
Disraeli the man from Disraeli the publicist. Once 
he had the end in view, a pen of gall, if that would do, 
but, if not, a sword, a bullet, was his means, coolly 
considered, nicely weighed. Even at seeming des- 
perate grip with O'Connell or the Globe editor he is 
still an onlooker. He calculates while he curses. The 
"general effect" is the thing, he tells his sister, very 
much as Cardinal Newman once told Sir William 
Cope that he used loud words about Kingsley because, 
if he spoke in his ordinary tone, nobody listened. 

There is always a public in England, perhaps else- 
where, that either does not hear, or does not believe 
you are really in earnest, until you shout. And when 
a man had to shout against O'Connell, the air must 
indeed be rent. Disraeli at Taunton, attacking the 
Whigs, said in the language of hyperbole that they 
had shaken O'Connell's "bloody hand." That is done 
with rhetoric now, and Tory Mr. George Wyndham 
has given it its quietus; but it was repeated in mid- 
dling years to weariness under Lord Carnarvon as 
well as under Lord Spencer, at any hint of alliance 
between the English occupiers and the Irish leaders 
of a peasantry driven by wrong and sufferings to seek 
the wild justice of revenge (better being denied them) 
in agrarian crime. The "bloody hand," though so 
honorable a device in heraldry, was an attribution 

207 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

boisterously resented by O'Connell; who, after the 
ways of political warfare, may have appeared to take 
it in too literal and personal a sense, recognizing in it 
a catch-phrase which, if passed into currency, would 
spoil some of the good business he hoped to transact 
with Lord Melbourne. For this was even that Disraeli 
for whom, at Bulwer's request, O'Connell had written 
a letter of recommendation to the electors of Wy- 
combe! Not for him the niceties of a new party — a 
political reformation: he saw only a flagrant case of 
tergiversation in the Tory candidate at Taunton, 
whose alien name and race made him, moreover, an 
easy victim for ridicule. So out poured the invective, 
where the environment was altogether congenial — at 
a political meeting in Dublin. 

"In the annals of political turpitude," he said, 
"there is not anything deserving the name of black- 
guardism to equal that attack upon me. What is my 
acquaintance with this man? Just this. In 1831, or 
the beginning of 1832, the borough of Wycombe be- 
came vacant. It appears that he or some one of his 
name was the author of one or two novels dignified 
with the title of Curiosities of Literature} He got an 
introduction to me, and wrote me a letter stating 
that I was a Radical reformer, and as he was also a 
Radical and was going to stand upon the Radical in- 
terest for the borough of Wycombe, where he said 
there were many persons of that way of thinking who 
would be influenced by my opinion, he would feel 

' This absurdity appears in oue report and not in another, but is all a piece 
with the rest of the speech for accuracy. 

208 



THE SCRAMBLE FOR A SEAT 

obliged by receiving a letter from me, recommenda- 
tory of him as a Radical. His letter to me was so 
distinct upon the subject, that I immediately com- 
plied with the request, and composed as good an 
epistle as I could in his behalf. I am in the habit of 
letter-writing, and Mr. Disraeli thought this letter so 
valuable that he not only took the autograph, but had 
it printed and placarded. It was, in fact, the ground 
upon which he canvassed the borough.^ He was, how- 
ever, defeated, but that was not my fault. The next 
thing I heard of him was that he had started upon the 
Radical interest for Marylebone, but was again de- 
feated. Having been twice defeated, on the Radical 
interest,^ he was just the fellow for the Conserva- 
tives; and accordingly he joined a Conservative club, 

^ A rollicking account of the transaction. It should be noted that Bulwer, 
anxious to get Disraeli into Parliament, and not Disraeli, as here stated, -wrote 
to O'Connell ; and that to Bulwer, not to Disraeli, was the reply addressed. 
This letter, which does not appear to put Disraeli under any excessive obliga- 
tion, ran as follows: "Parliament Street, June 3d, 1832. My dear Sir — 
In reply to your inquiry, I regret to say that I have no acquaintance at 
Wycombe to whom I could recommend Mr. Disraeli. It grieves me, there- 
fore, to be unable to serve him on his canvass. I am as convinced as you are 
of the great advantage the cause of genuine Reform would obtain from his 
return. His readiness to carry the Reform Bill into practical effect toward 
the production of cheap government and free institutions is enhanced by the 
talent and information which he brings to the good cause. I should certainly 
express full reliance on his political and personal integrity, and it would give 
me the greatest pleasure to assist in any way in procuring his return, but that, 
as I have told you, I have no claim on Wycombe, and can only express my 
surprise that it should be thought I had any. I have the honor to be, my 
dear sir, yours very faithfully, Daniel O'Connell." 

^ Counting Marylebone (where he issued an address but did not go to the 
poll), thrice rather than twice. And the half-truth which describes the Radi- 
cal-Tory as a Radical merely started off on its long alluring round from that 
day forward. 

15 209 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

started for two or three places on the Conservative 
interest. How is he now engaged? Why, in abusing 
the Eadicals, eulogizing the King and the Church, like 
a true Conservative. At Taunton this miscreant had 
the audacity to style me an incendiary. Why, I was 
a greater incendiary in 1831 than I am at present, if 
I ever were one; and if I am, he is doubly so for having 
employed me. Then he calls me a traitor. My answer 
to that is — he is a liar. He is a liar in actions and in 
words. His life is a living lie. He is a disgrace to his 
species. What state of society must that be that can 
tolerate such a creature — having the audacity to 
come forward with one set of principles at one time, 
and obtain political assistance by reason of those 
principles, and at another to profess diametrically 
the reverse? His life, I again say, is a living lie. He 
is the most degraded of his species and kind; and 
England is degraded in tolerating, or having upon the 
face of her society, a miscreant of his abominable, 
foul, and atrocious nature. My language is harsh, 
and I owe an apology for it, but I will tell why I owe 
that apology. 

"It is for this reason, that if there be harsher words 
in the British language, I should use them, because it 
is the harshest of all terms that would be descriptive 
of a wretch of this species. He is just the fellow for 
the Conservative club. I suppose if Sir Robert Peel 
had been out of the way when he was called upon to 
take office, this fellow would have undertaken to sup- 
ply his place. He has falsehood enough, depravity 
enough, and selfishness enough to become the fitting 

210 



THE SCRAMBLE FOR A SEAT 

leader of the Conservatives. He is Conservatism per- 
sonified. His name shows him by descent a Jew. His 
father became a convert. He is better for that in this 
world.^ I hope, of course, he will be the better for 
it in the next. There is a habit of underrating that 
great and oppressed nation — the Jews. They are 
cruelly persecuted by persons calling themselves 
Christians; but no person ever yet was a Christian 
who persecuted. The cruelest persecution they suffer 
is upon their character, by the foul names which their 
calumniators bestowed upon them before they car- 
ried their atrocities into effect. They feel the perse- 
cution of calumny severer upon them than the perse- 
cution of actual force, and the tyranny of actual 
torture. It will not be supposed, therefore, that when 
I speak of Disraeli as the descendant of a Jew, I mean 
to tarnish him on that account. They were once 
the chosen people of God. There were miscreants 
amongst them, however, also, and it must have cer- 
tainly been from one of those that Disraeli descended. 
He possesses just the qualities of the impudent thief 
who died upon the Cross, whose name, I verily believe, 
must have been Disraeli. For aught I know, the 
present Disraeli is descended from him; and with the 
impression that he is, I now forgive the heir-at-law of 
the blasphemous thief who died upon the Cross." 
From the O'Connell point of view the interest 

' Wliere, as here, the premiss is inaccurate, the insinuation founded on it 
seems to do something more than merely fail. But the mere hint suggests to 
what charges of venal hypocrisy Disraeli would have been exposed through- 
out his life had his own baptism been deferred until after he had passed the 
schoolboy stage. 

211 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

centers in the line: "No person ever yet was a 
Christian who persecuted" — memorable in the place 
and time of its utterance. If there was everything 
about the rest of the speech to suggest the taste 
and the temper that go to make the fanatic, the 
baiter, and the bully, that inconsistency may be set 
down to what were then held to be the exigencies of 
political controversy. Nor need we take it seriously. 
O'Connell, too, no less than Disraeli, may be said to 
have shouted — in his own Celtic fashion. Between 
the two men there had been some personal courtesies. 
A year earlier the neophyte, after dining with the 
Liberator, had written: "I have had three interviews 
of late with three remarkable men — O'Connell, Beck- 
ford, and Lord Durham. The first is the man of the 
greatest genius; the second of the greatest taste; and 
the last of the greatest ambition." Even at Taunton, 
Disraeli had prefaced his "bloody hand" strictures by 
saying: "I am myself O'ConnelPs admirer, so far as 
his talents and abilities are concerned." Faced now 
by the virulent personal onslaught which was to be 
the test of his mettle, Disraeli sent a challenge to 
O'Connell. The sequel is well known. O'Connell's 
conscience, which should certainly, with this contin- 
gency in view, have been tenderer in affairs of the 
tongue, would not allow him to fight — he had already 
in the duel with D'Esterre killed his man. Morgan 
O'Connell, M.P., the son, had, however, fought in his 
father's behalf with Lord Alvanley, and to him there- 
fore Disraeli wrote: 



212 



THE SCRAMBLE FOR A SEAT 

" 3lA Park Street, Grosvejstor Square, 
" Tuesday, May 5th, 1835. 

"Sir: As you have established yourself as the 
champion of your father, I have the honor to request 
your notice to a very scurrilous attack which your 
father has made upon my conduct and character. 

"Had Mr. O'Connell, according to the practise ob- 
served among gentlemen, appealed to me respecting 
the accuracy of the reported expressions before he in- 
dulged in offensive comments upon them, he would, 
if he can be influenced by a sense of justice, have felt 
that such comments were unnecessary. He has not 
thought fit to do so, and he leaves me no alternative 
but to request that you, as his son, will resume your 
vicarious duties of yielding satisfaction for the in- 
sults which your father has too long lavished with 
impunity on his political opponents. 

"I have the honor to be, sir, your obedient servant, 

"B. Disraeli." 

O'Connell the younger replied (in a letter carried 
by Mr. French) that while he would not allow other 
people to insult his father, he did not hold himself 
accountable for any insult his father might put upon 
others. Lord Alvanley's offense, for instance, had 
been the calling of a meeting at Brooks's Club, of 
which both were members, to consider O'Connell's 
conduct in abusing Lord Alvanley as a "bloated 
buffoon." Though this explanation was no direct in- 
citement to Disraeli to insult O'Connell the elder, Dis- 
raeli may be excused for so considering it, at least 
for so handling it. He sent a second note to O'Connell 
the younger: 

213 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

" 3lA Park Street, Gtrosvenor Square, 
" Tuesday, May 5th. 

"Sir: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt 
of your letter, delivered to me by Mr. Fitzstephen 
French, by which I learn that you do not consider 
yourself 'answerable for what your father may say.' 

"With regard to your request that I should with- 
draw my letter, because its character is insulting to 
yourself, I have to observe that it is not in my power 
to withdraw the letter, which states the reason of 
my application; but I have no hesitation in assuring 
you that I did not intend that it should convey to you 
any personal insult. 

"I have the honor, etc., 

"B. Disraeli." 

No reply came; but Disraeli, in the interval of 
waiting, was sharpening his pen for a lengthy indict- 
ment of the Irish leader.^ 

To Mr. Daniel 0''Connell, M.P. for Duhlin. 

"Mr. O'Connell: Although you have long placed 
yourself out of the pale of civilization, still I am one 
who will not be insulted, even by a Yahoo, without 
chastising it. When I read this morning in the same 
journals your virulent attack upon myself, and that 
your son was at the same moment paying the penalty 

'■ An irrelevant namesake of O'Connell's, but not, as he claimed, a kinsman, 
addressed to Disraeli the following letter : " I understand that you have sent 
a challenge to my illustrious kinsman, the great Daniel O'Connell, well know- 
ing that owing to a solemn vow he could not meet you; but I, sir, as his 
relative, and endorsing every word he has said of you, am prepared to give 
you that satisfaction which one gentleman owes to another, and am ready to 
meet you at any time and place you name — here, in France, in Germany, or 
even at the foot of that mount where your impenitent ancestor suffered for 
his crimes." Even as in a duel a bullet is not always delivered, so we may 
perhaps conclude that this letter, though composed, was never sent. Its 

214 



THE SCRAMBLE FOR A SEAT 

of similar virulence to another individual on whom 
you had dropped your filth, I thought that the con- 
sciousness that your opponents had at length discov- 
ered a source of satisfaction might have animated 
your insolence to unwonted energy; and I called upon 
your son to reassume his vicarious of&ce of yielding 
satisfaction for his shrinking sire. But it seems that 
gentleman declines the further exercise of the pleas- 
ing duty of enduring the consequences of your liber- 
tine harangues, I have no other means, therefore, of 
noticing your effusion but by this public mode. 
Listen, then, to me. 

"If it had been possible for you to act like a gentle- 
man, you would have hesitated before you made your 
foul and insolent comments upon a hasty and garbled 
report of a speech which scarcely contains a sentence 
or an expression as they emanated from my mouth; 
but the truth is, you were glad to seize the first op- 
portunity of pouring forth your venom against a man 
whom it serves the interests of your party to represent 
as a political apostate. In 1831, when Mr. O'Connell 
expressed to the electors of Wycombe his anxiety to 
assist me in my election, I came forward as the oppo- 
nent of the party in power, which I described in my 
address as 'a rapacious, tyrannical, and incapable 
faction' — the English Whigs, who in the ensuing year 
denounced you as a traitor from the throne, and every 
one of whom only a few months back you have anath- 
ematized with all the peculiar graces of a tongue 
practised in scurrility. You are the patron of these 
men now, Mr. O'Connell; you, forsooth, are 'devoted' 

writer, who went by the nickname of Lord Kilmallock, was once introduced 
by O'Connell the younger as " my friend Mr. O'Connell." "My kinsman, 
your father would have said," pleaded the namesake. " My father's vanity," 
said Morgan O'Connell. That touch of a Disraelian humor does seem to 
make " all the O'Connells " of his kin. 

215 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

to them. I am still their uncompromising opponent. 
Which of us is the most consistent? 

"You say that I was once a Radical, and am now 
a Tory. My conscience acquits me of ever having de- 
serted a political friend, or having changed a polit- 
ical opinion. I worked for a great and avowed end 
in 1831, and that was the restoration of the balance 
of parties in the State: a result which I believed to 
be necessary to the honor of the realm, and the hap- 
piness of the people. I never advocated a measure 
which I did not believe tended to this result; and if 
there be any measures which I then urged, and now 
am not disposed to press, it is because that great 
result is obtained. 

"In 1831 I should have been very happy to have 
labored for this object with Mr. O'Connell, with whom 
I had no political acquaintance, but who was a mem- 
ber of the Legislature, remarkable for his political 
influence, his versatile talents, and his intense hatred 
and undisguised contempt of the Whigs. Since 1831 
we have met only once, but I have a lively recollection 
of my interview with so distinguished a personage. 
Our conversation was of great length, and I had a 
very ample opportunity of studying your character. 
I thought you a very amusing, a very interesting, and 
a somewhat overrated man. I am sure on that occa- 
sion I did not disguise from you my political views; 
I spoke with a frankness which, I believe, is character- 
istic of my disposition. I told you I was not a senti- 
mental, but a practical politician; that which I chiefly 
desired to see, was the formation of a strong but 
constitutional government that would maintain the 
empire; and that I thought if the Whigs remained 
in oflflce they would shipwreck the State. I observed 
then, as was my habit, that the Whigs must be got 
rid of at any price. It seemed to me that you were 

216 



THE SCRAMBLE FOR A SEAT 

much of the same opinion as myself, but our conversa- 
tion was very general. We formed no political alli- 
ance, and for a simple reason. I concealed neither 
from yourself nor from your friends that the re- 
peal of the Union was an impassable gulf between 
us, and that I could not comprehend, after the an- 
nouncement of such an intention, how any English 
party could cooperate with you. Probably you then 
thought that the English movement might confed- 
erate with you on a system of mutual assistance, and 
that you might exchange and circulate your accom- 
modation measures of destruction; but even Mr. 
O'Connell, with his lively faith in Whig feebleness 
and Whig dishonesty, could scarcely have imagined 
that, in the course of twelve months, his fellow-con- 
spirators were to be my Lord Melbourne and the 
Marquis of Lansdowne. I admire your scurrilous 
allusions to my origin. It is quite clear that the 
'hereditary bondsman' has already forgotten the 
clank of his fetters. I know the tactics of your 
Church; it clamors for toleration, and it labors for 
supremacy. I see that you are quite prepared to per- 
secute. 

"With regard to your taunts as to my want of suc- 
cess in my election contests, permit me to remind you 
that I had nothing to appeal to but the good sense 
of the people. No threatening skeletons canvassed 
for me; a death's-head and cross-bones was not 
blazoned on my banners. My pecuniary resources, 
too, were limited. I am not one of those public beg- 
gars that we see swarming with their obtrusive boxes 
in the chapels of your creed; nor am I in possession 
of a princely revenue arising from a starving race of 
fanatical slaves. Nevertheless, I have a deep con- 
viction that the hour is at hand when I shall be more 
successful, and take my place in that proud assembly 

217 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

of which Mr. O'Connell avows his wish to be no longer 
a member. I expect to be a representative of the 
people before the repeal of the Union. We shall meet 
at Philippi; and rest assured that, confiding in a good 
cause, and in some energies which have not been al- 
together unimproved, I will seize the first oppor- 
tunity of inflicting upon you a castigation which will 
make jou at the same time remember and repent the 
insults that you have lavished upon 

"Benjamin Disraeli." 

The deliberation of his periods indicates a certain 
pleasure in them, enough, one hopes, to compensate 
the writer for the rank unreason of the whole epi- 
sode.i The challenge to Morgan O'Connell was sent 
on May 5th. On the next day he wrote to his sister: 

''I send you the Times and Morning Post. There 
is but one opinion among all parties— viz., that I have 
squabashed them. I went to D'Orsay immediately. 
He sent for Henry Baillie for my second, as he 
thought a foreigner should not interfere in a political 
duel; but he took the management of everything. I 
never quitted his house till ten o'clock, when I dressed 
and went to the opera, and every one says I have done 
it in first-rate style." 

Never was so light-hearted a protagonist amid 
issues of life and death. The enemy was not drawn; 

' Whatever else they are, I can not regard these letters as those of a man 
passing through " a paroxysm of rage, humiliation, and despair," or " a fury 
that had for a moment bereft him of sense." Mr. O'Connor, when he formed 
that opinion, had not before him those "Home Letters " which must have 
made the mitigating difference in so much of his count against Disraeli's early 
days. 

218 



THE SCRAMBLE FOR A SEAT 

and three days later the future Prime Minister of 
England was arraigned in a police court. 

"This morning, as I was lying in bed, thankful that 
I had I'^i^ked all the O'Connells and that I was at 
length to have a quiet morning, Mr. CoUard, the police 
officer of Marylebone, rushed into my chamber and 
took me into custody. In about an hour and a half, 

being dressed (having previously sent to S ), we 

all went in a hackney coach to the office, where I 
found that the articles were presented by a Mr. Ben- 
nett, residing in some street in Westminster, and an 
acquaintance of the O'Connells. We were soon dis- 
missed, but I am now bound to keep the peace in 
£500 sureties. As far as the present affair was con- 
cerned, it was a most unnecessary precaution, as if 
all the O'Connells were to challenge me, I could not 
think of meeting them noiv. I consider, and every one 
else, that they are lynched." 

Perhaps the most mortifying thing of all to Dis- 
raeli was the hesitation which his people at home felt 
in approving a correspondence and a combat of the 
kind. 

"It is very easy for you to criticize," he says, with- 
out any resentment, "but I do not regret the letter: 
the expressions were well weighed, and without it the 
affair was but clever pamphleteering. Critics you 
must always meet. W. told me the last letter was 
the finest thing in the English language, but that the 
letter to Dan was too long; others think that perfect. 
One does not like the Yahoo, as coarse; others think it 
worthy of Swift, and so on. The general effect is the 
thing, and that is, that all men agree I have shown 
pluck." 

219 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

They, in the placid back-waters of Bradenham, as 
we in wider seas of life, may lift up wondering eyes 
and deprecating hands before this foam of words. 
But if they lived long enough to look back and to say 
that Disraeli knew, so may we say it. Certain it is 
that an attempt was then made to crush Disraeli — 
the audacious man with the audacious name, in itself 
almost provocative to a horsewhip, if not a rack; a 
man audaciously dressed and with an impertinent 
pertinence in his naming of political things to the re- 
jection of the usual shibboleths: who, moreover, had 
written a book, not so good as this person's and that, 
but far more widely read. He had not the passwords, 
and he must perish. Here, at any rate, the Whigs and 
O'Connell could foregather, with "compact" and with 
"treaty," and nobody feel compromised or annoyed. 
Across his political tomb they could grasp hands, 
proudly bloody at last. Disraeli stood alone; he must 
so comport himself that he could not be left long in 
that forlorn minority of one. The offense which 
called forth O'Connell's simulation of moral indigna- 
tion was no offense at all, seen now by those who look 
back calmly from peaks which Disraeli anticipatingly 
scaled; and, what is more — let us have done with cant 
— the men in that melee did not want to see clearly; 
they did not mean to be convinced by anything Dis- 
raeli might say. For this purpose, then, it was even 
more important to show them that he was insensitive 
than to show them that he was right. Had he flinched 
an eyelash, he had given himself over to the enemy. 
If there is no sweetness (save his sister's) to be read 

220 



THE SCRAMBLE FOR A SEAT 

into or between these lines, and assuredly no beauty, 
there is, at any rate, an ascertained strength — that 
courage to face a bully, or any number of bullies, in 
which Dif^raeli, despite a nervous organism, showed 
himself not once deficient from first to last. And Dis- 
raeli continued to feel elation over this O'Connell pen- 
bludgeoning of his: 

"There is a gentleman opposite," he said at Maid- 
stone in 1837, "who seems proud of O'Connell's name. 
I can assure him there is none he could mention which 
makes me feel more proud; for, standing alone, I 
cowed the ruffian and his race." 

A few weeks later, when Disraeli met O'Connell at 
Philippi, one likes to hope that the Irish leader did 
not, on that occasion, lead his followers in the outcry 
that drowned Disraeli's first speech; but, after all, 
it is hoping that O'Connell was more than human. 
Yet great men are great in their impulses, even as 
toward scorn, so also toward generosity. Anyway, 
if O'Connell's memory for an affront, real or supposed, 
was long, even as his race's for an injury, Disraeli's 
was short, as haply became a son of fathers who had 
perforce to make swift peace with the persecutor. 
Knowing him, we expect his later allusions to O'Con- 
nell to be fair and even friendly; and in that expecta- 
tion we are not disappointed. 

If Disraeli devoted to the O'Connell episode a dis- 
proportionate attention and vocabulary, we, who 
read now, may in turn give disproportionate im- 
portance to Disraeli's part in it. Only two days suf- 

221 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

ficed for this first round — two days in which the com- 
mon routine of life's labor was duly done. When, at 
the close of the initiatory hostilities, Disraeli said 
that every one thought he had triumphed, he meant 
the "every one" whose opinion mattered to him. In 
the Glohe, then a Whig organ, a different estimate was 
made. At the end of the year (1835) the old charges 
about the Radical candidature at Wycombe were re- 
newed in the course of a review of Disraeli's Vindica- 
tion of the English Constitution, and when he made a 
reply only a mutilated passage of it was printed. It 
was this: 

"Your assertions that I applied to O'Connell to re- 
turn me to Parliament, and that he treated that appli- 
cation with irreverent and undisguised contempt, are 
quite untrue. I never made any application to Mr. 
O'Connell to return me to Parliament; and the only 
time I ever met Mr. O'Connell, which was in society, 
he treated me with a courtesy which I trust I re- 
turned." 

The Glohe, wrong alike in large things and small, 
in its attribution of Radicalism, in the ordinary sense 
of the term, to Disraeli, and in its mistaking Bulwer's 
application to O'Connell as Disraeli's own, had no 
word of apology. That it had made the same asser- 
tions months before without contradiction was put 
forward as a justification for disinterring the old 
calumny; and O'ConnelPs version in his Dublin 
speech, the inaccuracy of which could have been 
demonstrated by the least show of inquiry, was re- 
produced. Disraeli, who was thus, at the outset, to 

222 



THE SCRAMBLE FOK A SEAT 

exhaust his interest in nailing to the counter the false 
coinage in circulation with his superscription, and 
who early learned the error of devoting to an evening 
paper the energies that were meant for mankind, 
thereupon addressed to the Times the following letter, 
containing incidentally a statement of the political 
faith in him: 

To the Editor of the "Times.'''' 

" December 26th, 1835. 

"Sir: The editor of the Globe, in his paper of Fri- 
day, stated that I had applied to Mr. O'Connell to 
return me to Parliament as a joint of his tail, which 
is an utter falsehood, and substantiated his assertion 
by a pretended quotation from my letter in inverted 
commas, which is a complete forgery. I called the 
attention of the editor of the Globe to these circum- 
stances in courteous language, and the editor of the 
Globe inserted my letter in his columns, suppressing 
the very paragraph which affected his credit. 

"The editor of the Globe, accused of a falsehood 
and convicted of a forgery, takes refuge in silly in- 
solence. It tosses its head with all the fluttering 
indignation and affected scorn of an enraged and 
supercilious waiting-woman. It is the little Duke of 
Modena of the press, and would rule Europe with its 
scepter of straw, and declare a general war by the 
squeak of a penny trumpet. But its majestic stalk 
turns out to be only a waddle, and its awful menace 
a mere hiss. As for ^breaking butterflies on a wheel,' 
this is the stock simile of the Globe, an image almost 
as original as the phoenix, and [one] which, I have 
invariably observed in controversy, is the last des- 
perate resource of confuted commonplace and irri- 
tated imbecility. 

223 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

"An anonymous writer should, at least, display 
power. When Jupiter hurls a thunderbolt, it may be 
mercy in the god to veil his glory with a cloud; but 
we can only view with feelings of contemptuous 
lenity the mischievous varlet who pelts us with mud 
as we are riding by, and then hides behind a dust- 
hole. The editor of the Globe, I am assured, has 
adopted the great Scipio Africanus for his illustrious 
model. It is to be hoped that his Latin is more com- 
plete than his English, and that he will not venture 
to arrest the attention of admiring senates in a jargon 
which felicitously combines the chatter of Downing 
Street with the bluster of the Strand. 

"I have the honor to remain, sir, your very obe- 
dient servant, 

"B. Disraeli." 

The Olohe carried on the war of words. "Our 
tenderness toward volatile insects disinclines us to 
break a butterfly on a wheel oftener than necessary." 
A little of this sort of badinage goes a long way — 
and a short one. Yet there is a little sentence that 
illustrates — what we all desire — the happening of the 
unlikely. "Fifty years hence," said the Globe, "Mr. 
Disraeli and we shall, we trust, be better friends; 
though, by the way, his sanguine prospect of attain- 
ing that period convinces us that he is, as we sup- 
posed, not only the younger, but the youngest of the 
Disraelis." Disraeli did not quite live to see the 
fulfilment of the prediction made thus in scorn. But 
he lived long enough to read, with a pleasure made 
piquant by past hostilities, articles in praise of him- 
self and his policy in the evening newspaper that 

224 



THE SCRAMBLE FOR A SEAT 

blushed permauently pink in memory of those early 
indiscretions. The term "fifty years" seems almost 
fateful when we meet it again in the Glohe in one of 
its issues in the year 1868: "If Mr. Disraeli would 
enter the Chamber of Peers he would take his seat 
with a better right to honor than any man who has 
been elevated during the last half-century." 

Meanwhile, Disraeli had to begin the year 1836 
with another Glohe encounter, illustrating only too 
patently what he had earlier called in a letter to 
Bulwer (published on another page) "all the coarse 
vulgarity of our political controversies." 

To the Editor of the "Times.^^ 

"December 28th, 1835. 
"Sir: I have often observed that there are two 
kinds of nonsense — high nonsense and low nonsense. 
When a man makes solemn accusations which he can 
not prove, quotes documents which are not in ex- 
istence, affects a contempt which he can not feel, and 
talks of 'breaking butterflies on a wheel,' I call this 
high nonsense. When the same individual, in the 
course of four-and-twenty hours, writhing under a 
castigation which he has himself provoked, and which 
he will never forget, utters at the same time half an 
apology and half a sniveling menace, and crowns a 
rigmarole detail which only proves his own incapacity 
of reasoning by a swaggering murmur of indifference 
w/^orthy of Bodadil after a beating, I call this low non- 
sense. The editor of the Glohe is a consummate master 
of both species of silliness. Whether the writer of the 
articles of the Glohe ^ be a member of Parliament, as 
is formally asserted every week by a journal of great 

1 The writer was Charles Buller, M.P. 

16 225 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

circulation, and has never been contradicted, or 
whether he be a poor devil who is paid for his libel 
by the line, is to me a matter of perfect indifference. 
The thing who concocts the meager sentences, and 
drivels out the rheumy rhetoric of the Globe, may in 
these queer times be a senator, or he may not; all I 
know is, if the Whigs can not find a more puissant 
champion to attack me than the one they have already 
employed, I pity them. Their state is more forlorn 
than ever I imagined. They are now in much the same 
situation as the good Lady Bellenden with her well- 
accoutered cavalier; at the first charge he proves, 
after all, only to be Goose Gibbie. I will not say, with 
Macbeth, that I shall fall by 'none of woman born,' but 
this I will declare, that the Whig Samson shall never 
silence me by 'the jaw of an ass.' The editor of the 
Globe tSilkB, sir, of our united thunder; I can not com- 
pliment him, and all his members of Parliament, even 
on a single flash of lightning. On Friday, indeed, 
there was a sort of sparkish movement in his lucubra- 
tions, which faintly reminded me of the frisky bril- 
liancy of an expiring squib; but on Monday he was 
as flat and as obscure as an Essex marsh, unillumined 
by the presence of even a single ignis fatuus. 

"I did not enter into a controversy with the editor 
of the Globe with the inglorious ambition of unhorsing 
a few Whig scribblers — these are indeed 'small deer,' 
but because I thought there was a fair chance of 
drawing our gobemouche into making a speciflc accu- 
sation, which I have long desired, and of ridding my- 
self of those base innuendoes and those cowardly sur- 
mises with which the most gallant can not engage, 
and which the most skilful can not conquer. The 
editor of the Globe has realized my most sanguine 
expectations. Like all vulgar minds, he mistook 
courtesy for apprehension, and, flushed and bloated 

226 



THE SCRAMBLE FOR A SEAT 

with the anticipated triumph of a dull bully, he per- 
mitted me by his base suppression to appeal to your 
ready sense of justice, and thus has afforded me an 
opportunity of setting this question at rest for ever. 

"It turns out that the sole authority of the Glohe 
for its bold and detailed assertions is Mr. O'Connell's 
speech at Dublin, which the editor declares that I 
have never answered. I thought my answer to Mr. 
O'Connell was sufficiently notorious; I believe it is 
universally acknowledged, among all honest folks, 
that Mr. O'Connell, as is his custom, has the baseness 
first to libel me, and then to skulk from the conse- 
quences of his calumny. However, to put the Glohe 
out of court on this head, I here declare that every 
letter of every syllable of the paragraph quoted in its 
columns from Mr. O'Connell's speech is an unadul- 
terated falsehood — from my novels, which the de facto 
member for Dublin learnedly informs us are styled 
The Curiosities of Literature, to his letter to me, which 
was never written, and which he assures us was 
lithographed throughout Wycombe. 

"I asserted in the Glohe that I professed at this 
moment precisely the same political creed as on the 
hustings of Wycombe. I am prepared to prove this 
assertion. I was absent from England during the dis- 
cussions on the Eeform Bill. The bill was virtually, 
though not formally, passed when I returned to my 
country in the spring of 1832. Par from that scene 
of discord and dissension, unconnected with its 
parties, and untouched by its passions, viewing, as a 
whole, what all had witnessed only in the fiery pas- 
sage of its intense and alarming details, events have 
proved, with all humility be it spoken, that the opin- 
ion I formed of that measure on my arrival was more 
correct than the one commonly adopted. I found the 
nation in terror of a rampant democracy. I saw only 

227 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

an impending oligarchy. I found the House of Com- 
mons packed, and the independence of the House of 
Lords announced as terminated. I recognized a repeti- 
tion of the same oligarchical coups d'etat from which 
we had escaped by a miracle little more than a cen- 
tury before; therefore I determined to the utmost of 
my power to oppose the Whigs. 

''Why then, it may be asked, did I not join the 
Tories? Because I found the Tories in a state of 
stupefaction. The Whigs had assured them that they 
were annihilated, and they believed them. They had 
not a single definite or intelligible idea as to their 
position or their duties, or the character of their 
party. They were haunted with a nervous apprehen- 
sion of that great bugbear 'the People,' that bewilder- 
ing title under which a miserable minority contrives 
to coerce and plunder a nation. They were ignorant 
that the millions of that nation required to be guided 
and encouraged, and that they were that nation's 
natural leaders, bound to marshal and to enlighten 
them. The Tories trembled at a coming anarchy; 
what they had to apprehend was a rigid tyranny. 
They fancied themselves on the eve of a reign of ter- 
ror, when they were about to sink under the sover- 
eignty of a Council of Ten. Even that illustrious man 
who, after conquering the Peninsula, ought to deem 
nothing impossible, announced that the King's Gov- 
ernment could not be carried on. The Tories in 1832 
were avowedly no longer a practical party; they had 
no system and no object; they were passive and for- 
lorn. They took their seats in the House of Commons 
after the Reform Act as the Senate in the Forum, 
when the city was entered by the Gauls — only to die. 

"I did not require Mr. O'Connell's recommenda- 
tion, or that of any one else, for the borough the 
suffrages of whose electors I had the honor to solicit. 

228 



THE SCRAMBLE FOR A SEAT 

My family resided in the neighborhood. I stood alike 
on local influence and distinctly avowed principles, 
and I opposed the son of the Prime Minister. At the 
first meeting of the electors I developed those views 
which I have since taken every opportunity to ex- 
press, and which are fully detailed in my recent letter 
to Lord Lyndhurst. Opposition to the Whigs at all 
hazards, and the necessity of the Tories placing them- 
selves at the head of the nation, were the two texts on 
which I preached, and to which I ever recurred; the 
same doctrines are laid down in my letter to the elect- 
ors of Marylebone. The consequence of this address 
was, that all the Tories of the town, and all those 
voters who were not Whigs, but who from a confusion 
of ideas were called Radicals, offered me their sup- 
port. Did this gratifying result prove my inconsist- 
ency? I think I may assert it only proved the justness 
of my views and the soundness of my arguments. If 
the Tories and Radicals of England had united, like 
the Tories and Radicals of Wycombe, four years ago, 
the oligarchical party would long since have been 
crushed; had not the Tories and a great portion of the 
Radicals united at the last general election, the oli- 
garchy would not now have been held in check. Five 
years hence I trust there will not be a Radical in the 
country; for if a Radical mean, as it can only mean, 
one desirous to uproot the institutions of the country, 
that is the exact definition of a Whig. 

''My opinions were specifically expressed in my 
subsequent address to the electors. I believe, sir, it 
has appeared in your columns. I called upon the 
electors to support me in a contest with a rapacious, 
tyrannical, and incapable faction, hostile alike to the 
liberties of the subject and the institutions of the 
country. 

"And now, sir, for Mr. O'Connell. Mr. O'Connell, 

229 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

in 1832, was in a very different situation to Mr. O'Con- 
nell in 1835. The Globe, which historically informs us 
that in 1832 I was to become a member of Mr. O'Oon- 
nell's tail, forgets that at that period Mr. O'Connell 
had no tail, for this was previous to the first general 
election after the Reform Act. Mr. O'Connell was 
not then an advocate for the dismemberment of the 
empire, the destruction of the Church, and the aboli- 
tion of the House of Lords. His lips overflowed with 
patriotism, with almost a Protestant devotion to the 
Establishment, with almost English admiration of 
the constitution. Our contest at Wycombe was a 
very warm one; every vote was an object. A friend 
of mine, interested in my success, knowing that I was 
supported by that portion of the constituency styled 
Radicals, applied to Mr. O'Connell and Mr. Hume, 
with whom he was intimately acquainted, to know 
whether they had any influence in Wycombe, and re- 
quested them to exercise it in my favor. They had 
none, and they expressed their regret in letters to this 
gentleman, who forwarded them to me at Wycombe; 
and my committee, consisting of as many Tories as 
Radicals, printed them: this is the history of my con- 
nection with Mr. O'Connell. 

"Even had it been in the power of Mr. O'Connell 
and Mr. Hume to have interposed in my favor at Wy- 
combe, my political allegiance would not have been 
the expected consequence of their assistance. Those 
gentlemen would have aided me from the principles 
I professed, and the measures I advocated in my ad- 
dress, and with a perfect acquaintance of the political 
position which I had assumed. They knew, at least 
one of them, that I had declined a distinct recom- 
mendation to another constituency, where my return 
would have been secure, because I avowed my resolu- 
tion to enter the House of Commons unshackled; they 

230 



THL SCRAMBLE FOR A SEAT 

were perfectly aware that the Tory party supported 
me in the borough, because some members of the min- 
istry, panting and pale, had actually knocked them 
up one night to request them to exert their influence 
against me on that score; and they were well ap- 
prised if I were returned I should offer a hostility 
without exception to every measure proposed by the 
Government. 

"The truth is, that Mr. Hume and Mr. O'Connell 
already stood aloof from the Whigs, and the least 
prescient might detect that they already meditated 
that furious opposition in which, in the course of a 
few months, they had embarked. They were not 
anxious to see the Whigs too strong; they would not 
have regretted to witness the return of a member 
whose hostility to the administration was uncompro- 
mising, particularly as they knew that I was really 
independent, totally unconnected with the Tory 
party, and considered of importance. I, on the other 
hand, had good reasons to recognize in these gentle- 
men and their connections the brooding elements of 
an active opposition — the seeds of a combination 
which, in the then state of affairs, I considered indis- 
pensable, and the only means of salvation to the 
country: and, had I been returned to Parliament in 
1832, I should have considered it my duty to support 
them in most of their measures, and especially their 
hostility to the Coercion Bill. 

"It has been asserted that I stood upon Radical 
principles. Why, then, did the Whigs oppose me as 
a Tory? I challenge any one to quote any speech I 
have ever made, or one line I have ever written, hos- 
tile to the institutions of the country; on the con- 
trary, I have never omitted any opportunity of 
showing that on the maintenance of those institu- 
tions the liberties of the nation depended; that if the 

231 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

Crown, the Church, the House of Lords, the corpora- 
tions, the magistracy, the poor laws, were success- 
fully attacked, we should fall, as once before we 
nearly fell, under a grinding oligarchy, and inevitably 
be governed by a metropolis. It is true that I avowed 
myself the supporter of triennial Parliaments, and 
for the same reasons as Sir William Wyndham, the 
leader of the Tories against Walpole — because the 
House of Commons had just been reconstructed for 
factious purposes by the Reform Act, as in the earlier 
days by the Septennial Bill. I thought with Sir 
William Wyndham, whose speech I quoted to the 
electors, that the Whig power could only be shaken 
by frequent elections. Well, has the result proved 
the shallowness of my views? What has shaken the 
power of the Whigs to the center? The general elec- 
tion of this year. What will destroy the power of the 
Whigs? The general election of the next. It is true 
that I avowed myself a supporter of the principle of 
the ballot. Sir William Wyndham did not do this, 
because in his time the idea was not in existence, but 
he would, I warrant it, have been as hearty a sup- 
porter of the ballot as myself, if, with his principles, 
he had been standing on the hustings in the year of 
our Lord 1832, with the third estate of the realm re- 
constructed for factious purposes by the Whigs, the 
gentlemen of England excluded from their own 
chamber, a number of paltry little towns enfranchised 
with the privilege of returning as many members of 
Parliament as the shires of this day, and the nomina- 
tion of these members placed in a small knot of hard- 
hearted sectarian rulers, opposed to everything noble 
and national, and exercising an usurious influence 
over the petty tradesmen, who are their slaves and 
their victims. 

"These were the measures which, in the desperate 

232 



THE SCRAMBLE FOR A SEAT 

state of our commonwealth in 1832, I thought might 
yet preserve the liberties of this country, expecting, 
as I did, to receive every day a bulletin of a batch of 
a hundred new peers; and that the Whigs of 1832, 
after having emulated, in regard to the independence 
of the House of Commons, the machinations of the 
Whigs of 1718, would be even more successful than 
their predecessors in their plots against the inde- 
pendence of the House of Lords. 

"I was unsuccessful in my election. The son of 
the Prime Minister beat me by some votes under 
twenty. The Whigs managed to get him elected by 
the influence of 'a, great public principle.' This 'great 
public principle' was more intelligible than the one 
which seated Mr. Abercromby in his chair. My op- 
ponent was elected out of 'gratitude' to Lord Grey. 
In future I suppose he will be returned out of 'ingrati- 
tude' to Lord Grey, for that seems more the fashion 
now. 

"More than three years after this came my contest 
at Taunton against the Master of the Mint, to which 
the editor of the Globe has alluded. I came forward 
on that occasion on precisely the same principles on 
which I had offered myself at Wycombe; but my situa- 
tion was different. I was no longer an independent 
and isolated member of the political world. I had felt 
it my duty to become an earnest partizan. The Tory 
party had in this interval roused itself from its 
lethargy; it had profited by adversity; it had regained 
not a little of its original character and primary 
spirit; it had begun to remember, or to discover, that 
it was the national party of the country; it recognized 
its duty to place itself at the head of the nation; it 
professed the patriotic principle of Sir William 
Wyndham and Lord Bolingbroke, in whose writings 
I have ever recognized the most pure and the pro- 

233 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

foundest sources of political and constitutional wis- 
dom; under the guidance of an eloquent and able 
leader, the principles of primitive Toryism had again 
developed themselves, and the obsolete associations 
which form no essential portion of that great patri- 
otic scheme had been ably and effectively discarded. 
In the great struggle I joined the party with whom 
I sympathized, and continued to oppose the faction 
to which I had ever been adverse. But I did not 
avow my intention of no longer supporting the ques- 
tions of short Parliaments and the ballot, merely 
because the party to which I had attached myself was 
unfavorable to those measures, though that, in my 
opinion as to the discipline of political connections, 
would have been a sufficient reason. I ceased to ad- 
vocate them because they had ceased to be necessary 
The purposes for which they had been proposed were 
obtained. The power of the Whigs was reduced to a 
wholesome measure; the balance of parties in the 
State was restored; the independence of the House of 
Lords preserved. Perpetual change in the political 
arrangements of countries of such a complicated civ- 
ilization as England is so great an evil, that nothing 
but a clear necessity can justify a recourse to it. 

"The editor of the Glohe may not be able to com- 
prehend these ideas. I am bound to furnish my an- 
tagonists with arguments, but not with comprehen- 
sion. The editor of the Glohe I take to be one of that 
not inconsiderable class of individuals ignorant of 
every species and section of human knowledge. His 
quavering remarks on my letter to Lord Lyndhurst 
convince me that he is as ignorant of the history of 
his own country as that of the pre-Adamite sultans. 
The smile of idiot wonder with which he learned for 
the first time that there were Tories in the reign of 
Queen Anne could only be commemorated by Ho- 

234 



THE SCRAMBLE FOR A SEAT 

garth. For once his pen seemed gifted with the 
faculty of expression, and he has recorded in his own 
columns a lively memento of his excited doltishness. 
What does it signify? His business is to chalk the 
walls of the nation with praises of his master's black- 
ing. He is worthy of his vocation. Only it is ludi- 
crous to see this poor devil whitewashing the barriers 
of Bayswater with the same self-complacency as if 
he were painting the halls of the Vatican. 

"The Whigs are now trying to cheer their spirits 
by their success in the corporation elections, as if the 
temporary and inevitable results of personal and 
local pique were to be attributed to their influence. 
How are the mighty fallen! Four years ago the 
Whigs were packing a Parliament; now they are con- 
tent to pack a town council. After having nearly suc- 
ceeded in ruining an empire, these gentlemen flatter 
themselves that they may still govern a parish. 

"I am not surprised, and assuredly not terrified, 
by the hostility of the Whigs. They may keep me out 
of Parliament, but they can not deprive me of one 
means of influencing public opinion as long as in this 
country there is a free press; a blessing which, had 
they succeeded in Louis Philippizing the country, as 
they intended, would not, however, have long afforded 
us its salutary protection. I feel that I have darted 
at least one harpoon in the floundering sides of the 
Whig leviathan. All his roaring and all his bellow- 
ing, his foaming mouth and his lashing tail, will not 
daunt me. I know it is the roar of agony and the 
bellow of anticipated annihilation, the foam of frenzy 
and the contortions of despair. I dared to encounter 
the monster when he was undoubted monarch of the 
waters, and it would indeed be weakness to shrink 
from a collision with him now, in this merited moment 
of his awful and impending dissolution. 

235 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

"I have trespassed, sir, too much on your truly 
valuable columns, but I am sensible of the indulgence, 
and have the honor to remain, sir, your very obliged 
and obedient servant, 

"B. Disraeli." 

He was in the vein; and ten days later another 
letter appeared: 

To the Editor of the "Times." 

" January 8th, 1836. 

"Sir: I have heard of a man at Waterloo who 
contrived to fight on some little time after his head 
was shot off. This is the precise situation of the ed- 
itor of the Globe; he continues writing, as the other 
continued fighting, without any brains; but the least 
skilful can in a moment detect that his lucubration 
of last night is not the result of any intellectual ex- 
ertion, but merely of a muscular motion. 

"After a week's trembling silence, the editor of 
the Globe has driveled out nearly three columns of 
dead man's prose, and, with the aid of a hysterical 
giggle about a misprint of a single letter in my last 
communication to you, would fain persuade us he is 
still alive. But we all know that the editor of the Globe 
is veritably deceased, and this letter must only be 
considered as a part of his funeral obsequies. 

"I need not notice my 'awful declaration' about 
the Whigs, which the ghost of the Globe has quoted, 
because these words were never uttered by me, and 
because at the time they were peremptorily contra- 
dicted in your journal, twenty-four hours after they 
were anonymously asserted to have been expressed. 
No one ever attempted to substantiate them, and the 
lie died away like many others. As for the extracts 
from my address to which the specter has also ap- 

236 



'M^ 




THE SCRAMBLE FOR A SEAT 

pealed, I beg to inform the apparition that I have not 
'thrown over' any of the excellent objects which are 
enumerated in it. The Reform Bill may be, as the 
editor of the Glohe for once pertinently expresses it, 
a dishonest trick of the oligarchical Whigs, but it 
does not follow that, like many other tricks, it may 
not lead to consequences which the tricksters never 
anticipated. 

"As for the honorable member for Middlesex, he 
has never attacked me, and I have therefore ever felt 
bound by the courtesy of society not to introduce the 
name of that gentleman into these discussions more 
than was absolutely necessary; but do not let the 
editor of the Glohe again commit his old error, 
and attribute to apprehension what courtesy alone 
prompted. I repeat, that Mr. Hume's letter, to which 
the editor of the Glohe originally alluded, was ad- 
dressed to a third person.^ 

"Four-and-twenty hours after it appeared at Wy- 
combe, by some extraordinary circumstance a letter 
written by the same gentleman was circulated there 
in favor of Colonel Grey by the committee of my gal- 
lant opponent. Whatever might be the value of Mr. 
Hume's letter, I did not choose to pass by in silence 
a proceeding which appeared to every one very ex- 
traordinary, therefore I instantly saw Mr. Hume, who 
afforded me a satisfactory explanation. He afforded 
it to me by way of letter, and concluded that letter 
with the expressions quoted by the ingenious editor 
of the Glohe. This letter was necessarily printed; but 
this is not the letter which has been appealed to in 
this controversy. All the details about my introduc- 
tion to Mr. Hume, with a letter from Mr. Bulwer, and 
my frequent conferences with Mr. Hume at his house, 

' A confusion of memory. It was addressed to Disraeli, though given to 
Bulwer. 

237 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

are, as usual with the Globe, utter falsehoods. I never 
saw Mr. Hume but once in my life, and that was at 
the House of Commons; the object of that interview 
was to request an explanation of the circumstances 
which I have mentioned, and to that circumstance 
the interview was confined. 

"The same reason that deterred me from unneces- 
sarily introducing the name of Mr. Hume, precludes 
me from noticing the anonymous insinuations of the 
editor of the Globe respecting Lord Durham; and ohly 
that reason. 

"Like the man who left off fighting because he 
could not keep his wife from supper, the editor of the 
Globe has been pleased to say that he is disinclined to 
continue this controversy because it gratifies my 
'passion for notoriety.' The editor of the Globe must 
have a more contracted mind, a paltrier spirit, than 
even I imagined, if he can suppose for a moment that 
an ignoble controversy with an obscure animal like 
himself can gratify the passion for notoriety of one 
whose works at least have been translated into the 
languages of polished Europe, and circulate by thou- 
sands in the New World. It is not then my passion 
for notoriety that has induced me to tweak the editor 
of the Globe by the nose, and to inflict sundry kicks 
upon the baser part of his base body; to make him 
eat dirt, and his own words, fouler than any filth; but 
because I wished to show to the world what a miser- 
able poltroon, what a craven dullard, what a literary 
scarecrow, what a mere thing, stuffed with straw and 
rubbish, is the soi-disant director of public opinion and 
official organ of Whig politics. 

"I have the honor to be, sir, your obedient servant, 

"B. Disraeli." 

Rather unluckily (for our patience) Mr. Hume and 

238 



THE SCRAMBLE FOR A SEAT 

and his secretary now allowed themselves to be ral- 
lied to the Glohe. The battle already fought by Dis- 
raeli had to be fought again, but with none of the 
enkindling zest that at first carries the combatant 
to deeds of daring; nay, London, one thinks, might 
have become almost a deserted village itself at the 
mere prospect of this restatement of the episodes of 
the old electoral wars. For us, who look backward, 
there is at least this cumulative interest with which 
Disraeli's after-career invested these early assaults 
upon the seriousness of his aims and the fixity of his 
tenure of opinion. If spite (one can call it no less) was 
a larger ingredient in public affairs then than now, 
the increase of toleration has been won for us prin- 
cipally by Disraeli: partly by what he himself bore 
from the mud-throw at every step forward — we see 
now its futility as well as its meanness — and partly 
by that good temper and that personal deference with 
which, during his own years of political leadership, 
he delivered his most penetrating volleys into the 
sides of his opponents. Party government to-day, even 
with the barriers broken down, Disraeli-wise, may 
seem little more than a travesty to the onlooking phi- 
losopher; but in the days with which we are now deal- 
ing it was in effect civil war. 

To Joseph Hume, Esq., M.P. 

' ' 34 Upper Grosvenor Street, 
" Monday evening [January 11th, 1836]. 

"Sir: You have, at length, dropped the mask; 
and, in becoming my avowed assailant, you permit me 
to relate circumstances which would, long ago, have 

239 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

silenced the idle controversy with which the evening 
organ of Whig politics has attempted to cloak its re- 
cent disgraceful discomfiture. I have mentioned in 
my letter to the editor of the Times that I have only 
met you once, and that was at the House of Commons: 
it appears you were then attending the Indian Com- 
mittee; you know very well under what circumstances 
I was forced to apply to you personally on that occa- 
sion; you know you had conducted yourself toward 
me in a manner which was not only a violation of all 
the courtesies, but of the common honesty of life; you 
know the extreme difiiculty which I had in extracting 
from you a satisfactory explanation, and I can not 
forget, though you may, the offers of service which on 
that occasion you made me, and which I declined. 
Some months after this, a vacancy, which never oc- 
curred, being threatened in the borough of Maryle- 
bone, I announced myself in opposition to the Whig 
candidate, who was already in the field. In the course 
of my canvass, I called upon Mr. Joseph Hume, an 
influential elector of that borough, one, too, recently 
so profuse in his offers of service, and now in violent 
opposition to that party which I had ever resisted; 
you were, I was informed, severely indisposed; you 
were not even seen by me, but I explained to your 
clerk or secretary the object of my visit, and, that no 
error might occur, I wrote a letter to your house, 
which I delivered to that secretary; doubtless, being a 
canvassing epistle, it was sufficiently complimentary. 
It is obvious you take very good care of these docu- 
ments, but why is not this letter produced? Because 
it would have explained how your secretary remem- 
bered my calling at your residence, and because it 
would have confirmed my previous account; and when 
I did call, I had not the honor of seeing yourself. 
Your 'impression' that I did call upon you in Bryan- 

240 



THE SCRAMBLE FOR A SEAT 

ston Square at the beginning of your letter, at the end 
of your communication swells into certainty. Why 
were you more certain at the termination of your 
epistle than at the beginning? Were you strength- 
ened by your secretary's recollection of me? I have 
shown how we chanced to meet; the truth is, you 
wished to confirm an anonymous libeler in his state- 
ment, that I had sought a former interview with you 
before I became a candidate at Wycombe, and it is 
obvious, from the cautious mendacity at the com- 
mencement of your letter, that you were aware that 
you were countenancing a lie. 

"But I have not done with you. Whether you 
wrote a letter of me or to me at Wycombe, whether 
I saw you when I called at your house or not, whether 
w^e met half a dozen times or only once, what, after 
all, has this miserable trifling to do with the merits 
of the question? This controversy commenced by the 
evening organ of the Whig being instructed by its 
masters to attack and answer my Yindication of the 
English Constitution; the unlettered editor of the Glohe, 
as ignorant of the history as he is of the language of 
his country, puzzled and confounded, sought refuge in 
the vile and vulgar expedient of personally abusing the 
author; if he can not redeem his oft-repeated bluster 
of reputation, let his masters hire another, and abler, 
hack to baffle that exposure of the plots and fallacies of 
their unprincipled faction. The illogical editor of the 
Grlohe, incompetent to distinguish between principles 
and measures, accused me of political tergiversation, 
because with the same principles as I had ever pro- 
f essed I was not of opinion that in 1835 two particular 
measures were necessary which I deemed expedient in 
1832. I stated my reasons why I no longer deemed 
those measures expedient. The editor of the Glohe has 
never answered them, but if the editor of the Glohe 
17 241 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

requires any further information on this subject, if 
he be still anxious to learn how it may be possible, 
without any forfeiture of political principles, to hold 
different opinions at different seasons respecting 
political measures, I refer him to his patron, Lord 
John Russell, the whilom supporter of triennial Par- 
liaments; or his ancient master. Lord Spencer, the 
umquhile advocate of the ballot. If these right hon- 
orable personages can not succeed in introducing a 
comprehension of this subject into the unparalleled 
skull of the editor of the Globe, why, then he must even 
have recourse to that Magnus Apollo of the Treasury 
Bench, Sir John Hobhouse, who will doubtless make 
it most lucidly obvious to him how a man who com- 
mences a political career, pledged to annual Parlia- 
ments and universal suffrage, may duly dwindle into 
a low Whig upholder of a senatorial existence of 
seven years, and a suffrage limited to the mystical 
boundary of a ten-pound franchise, 

"But, sir, as you are so happy in addressing letters 
to the editor of the Globe, and since your political con- 
sistency is so universally acknowledged that you, as 
you classically express it, can not put pen to paper 
without producing some fresh evidence of public in- 
tegrity, permit me to ask you what is your opinion 
of the consistency of that man who, after having 
scraped together a fortune by jobbing in Government 
contracts in a colony, and entering the House of Com- 
mons as the Tory representative of a close corpora- 
tion, suddenly becomes the apostle of economy and 
unrestricted suffrage, and closes a career, com- 
menced and matured in corruption, by spouting sedi- 
tion in Middlesex, and counseling rebellion in Can- 
ada? "Your obedient servant, 

"B. Disraeli." 



242 



THE SCRAMBLE FOR A SEAT 

The question of Disraeli's political faith at Wy- 
combe, which a glance at his addresses and speeches 
would have settled, was to be decided by Disraeli's 
personal veracity, and that was to depend on the ac- 
curacy of his memory for events of three or four years 
earlier in a very crowded life. If he were found in 
error, he was a liar and done with; if others were in 
error — they were but human. It was on this sort of 
"heads I win, tails you lose" gamble that Disraeli the 
Alien was expected to play with John Bull the Just 
for many years; one might say, in a sense, until the 
close of his life. In this case the lucky link was forth- 
coming, and Bulwer, who had, we may guess, rather 
underlined the Radical items in the Disraelian pro- 
gram — short Parliaments, the ballot, and untaxed 
knowledge — when he solicited the help of O'Connell 
and of Hume for this anti-Whig candidate, his friend, 
at any rate, bore witness to the bare contested facts, 
apart from principle, and bore witness in Disraeli's 
behalf. An old letter of his to Disraeli, which removed 
the incidents narrated from the mere effort of mem- 
ory, was found and published in Disraeli's next letter 
to the Times. Of Bulwer himself let it be said that 
even he, who saw two sides of most questions — a fatal 
power of vision, he thought — did not understand the 
Disraelian blend of Tory-Radical. Writing at this 
time (January 7, 1836) to Mr. Oox of Taunton, Bulwer 
says: "I question his philosophy; but I do not doubt 
his honor." 



243 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

To the Editor of the ''Times:' 

" January \Uh [1836]. 
"Sir: I had hoped not to have troubled you again 
on the subject of Mr. Hume, his public statements, 
and his private secretary, but a circumstance has just 
occurred, very gratifying to me, which, I should think, 
must be scarcely less to every manly mind who re- 
joices in the exposure of a virulent conspiracy. A 
friend of mine has discovered among my papers at 
Bradenham a letter of Mr. Bulwer, which originally 
led to the Wycombe correspondence. Here it follows: 

" Copy of a letter from Mr. Bulwer to Mr. Disraeli, 
June 3, 1883. 

"'My dear Disraeli: I have received from my 
friend Mr. Hume a letter addressed to you, which I 
have forwarded to Bradenham. In case you should 
not receive it in such good time as may be wished, I 
may as well observe that in it Mr. Hume expresses his 
great satisfaction at hearing you are about to start 
for Wycombe — his high opinion of your talents and 
principles — and while he regrets he knows no one at 
Wycombe whom otherwise he would certainly en- 
deavor to interest in your behalf, he avails himself of 
his high situation in public esteem to remind the 
electors of Wycombe that the Reform Bill is but a 
means to the end of good and cheap government, and 
that they ought to show themselves deserving of the 
results of that great measure by choosing members 
of those talents and those principles which can alone 
advocate the popular cause, and which Mr. Hume 
joins with me in believing you so eminently possess. 
You will receive this letter at latest on Tuesday morn- 
ing, and so anxious was he in your behalf, that he 

244 



THE SCRAMBLE FOR A SEAT 

would not leave London, though on matters of urgent 
private business, until he had written it. 

" ^Assuring you, etc., 

"'E. L. BULWER.' 

"That I may not be considered under any circum- 
stances ungrateful to a gentleman who was ' so 
anxious on my behalf that he would not leave London, 
though on matters of urgent private business,' I will 
just observe that almost ere the ink was dry of the 
letter in which I acknowledged the receipt of his 
favor, and the tone of which alone would prove we 
had then no personal acquaintance, I found this same 
Mr. Hume, without giving any notice to Mr. Bulwer 
or myself of his intention, not only exerting his influ- 
ence in London against me, but absolutely writing 
canvassing letters in favor of my opponent. On seek- 
ing an explanation from him of this conduct — the only 
time, I repeat, and as I now prove, I ever saw Mr. 
Hume — he informed me that he could not, on reflec- 
tion, countenance so violent an opponent to the 
Whigs. 

"This letter of Mr. Bulwer, sir, accounts for the 
only error which I have committed in my statement, 
although I wrote from memory. Recollecting that I 
became acquainted with the contents of Mr. Hume's 
letter in a communication from Mr. Bulwer, I took it 
for granted, as in the instance of Mr. O'Connell, that 
the letter was addressed to Mr. Bulwer, and that Mr. 
Bulwer communicated the substance of it to me at 
Bradenham; an error so trivial hardly exceeds a 
clerical mistake. Every other statement I have made 
— though, I repeat, merely writing from memory and 
in haste — is not only substantially, but absolutely 
correct. Every statement that Mr. Hume has made, 
though writing at leisure and with an appeal to docu- 

245 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

ments, is substantially and absolutely incorrect. I 
bad no motive to misrepresent the circumstances, for 
tbey had nothing to do with the merits of my case. 
Mr. Hume had every motive to misrepresent the cir- 
cumstances, for on their misrepresentation his case 
entirely depended. In attempting to crush a political 
opponent, he iias been hoist with his own petard, and 
afforded the public a further illustration of his pro- 
verbial veracity. As for the poor editor of the Globe, 
he of course feels like any other tool who has failed 
in a dirty job. But for the private secretary, who 
recollects my calling at the house with Mr. Bulwer, 
seeing and conferring with Mr. Hume, and receiving 
from his own hands his celebrated autograph, what 
an invaluable memory he has! 

"I have the honor to be, sir, your obliged and 

obedient servant, 

"B. Disraeli." 

Here we get quit of the pother caused by the 
Ideality of the Young Politician in a country which 
thinks in words rather than speaks its thoughts, and 
which especially preferred, at that date, the mutton- 
chop whiskers of Pam before all the ringlets of Dis- 
raeli. Yet our customary postscript, in all that con- 
cerns the Disraeli of combat, is not here denied us. 
Of Hume, who had seized a free moment, when he 
was not 

Taking the sense 
Of the House on a saving of thirteen pence, 

to join in this attempt to extinguish him, the Disraeli 
of after-years, Disraeli the forgiver, was able to make 
a just and even a generous estimate: 

"They," he wrote of the Radical party in his Life 

246 



THE SCRAMBLE FOR A SEAT 

of Lord George Bentinck, "mainly depend on the multi- 
farious information and vast experience of Mr. Hume, 
who towers amongst them without a rival. Future 
Parliaments will do justice to the eminent services 
of this remarkable man, still the most hard-working 
of the House, of which he is now the father. His 
labors on public committees will be often referred 
to hereafter, and then, perhaps, it will be remembered 
that, during a career of forty years, and often under 
circumstances of great provocation, he never once 
lost his temper." 

One word more of Mr. Hume. If he did not suc- 
cessfully father Disraeli at his Parliamentary birth, 
he did at least as unexpected a thing — gave a name 
to the party of young men who put themselves under 
Disraeli's leadership in a movement of social regen- 
eration. On this point there is now no better author- 
ity living than the Duke of Rutland, who thus replies 
to a query I put to him: "I believe the story is true 
that the name ^Young England' was given by Mr. 
Hume, who, annoyed at being interrupted in one of 
his dreary statistical speeches, attributed the inter- 
ruption to 'Young England, which had come down 
after dinner in white waistcoats,' etc." 

Another postscript indicative of Disraeli's essen- 
tial good-nature must be made. It has to do with 
"The Delectable Mr. Hayward" — Disraeli so described 
Abraham Hayward in a letter telling his sister of his 
fellow-guests at the Deepdene, Christmas, 1840. 

Ten years later this "delectable" Edinburgh Re- 
viewer wrote to Lady Morgan: "Protection is dead, 
and Disraeli very nearly, if not quite, forgotten. How 

247 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

soon one of these puffed-up reputations goes down — 
it is like a bladder after the pricking of a pin." Pro- 
tection, fifty years later, seems but sleeping; and the 
"bladder" was not, after all, very effectually pricked 
by Abraham's pen. In 1853 Hayward was anxious to 
do an article in the Edinburgh on Mr. G. H. Francis's 
"critical biography" of Disraeli. "I know every inci- 
dent of his life," he boasts to his editor, "and it was I 
who furnished C. Buller with the materials of his Dis- 
raeli articles in the Globe in 1836-7." With a resource 
in metaphor almost equaling in banality the bladder 
allusion of the last letter, Hayward rather inconse- 
quently adds: "His fate is still wavering in the bal- 
ance, though he is beginning to kick the beam." With 
Hayward's assistance the struggle would be at an 
end. The editor was a little shy; and the "delectable'^ 
Hayward further alludes to these Globe articles for his 
enlightenment; saying that Dizzy, charged with the 
Westminster Club, "admitted the club and said he did 
not know its politics!" — a statement, or rather a mark 
of exclamation, which the reader can test by the full 
account of that transaction given elsewhere in these 
pages. "I cut him till we met at Deepdene after his 
marriage" is another Hayward saying, and of the 
very visit which labeled him the "delectable." 

The revisions in The Revolutionary Epic made by 
Disraeli in the 1864 edition were stigmatized by Hay- 
ward, writing to Gladstone, as "a trick." Gladstone, 
as to whom some people were under the impression 
that he liked to hear these things, did not on this occa- 
sion take the Hayward line, or took it only very faint- 

248 



THE SCRAMBLE FOR A SEAT 

heartedly. "The amendments made are, I think, not 
purely literary; but I do not see that it is worth his 
while to make them. With respect to the franchise, 
I think Disraeli always maintained that when the 
time came for dealing with Parliamentary reform, 
the laboring classes must be rather freely admitted 
to the suffrage." In 1873, when Gladstone's Irish 
University Bill was defeated by a majority of three, 
without Disraeli's acceptance of office, Hayward 
wrote to the baffled but not ousted Minister : "What a 
time you must have had of it owing to the tricks of 
Disraeli!" Tricks! Years went on, and Abraham 
Hayward could not learn. At the close of 1875 he 
declaims against Disraeli's purchase of the Suez Ca- 
nal shares. "Surely," we find him saying to Lord 
Carlingford, "Parliament will never sanction such a 
step as this." Wrong in his immediate anticipation 
of events, he nevertheless proceeds with his further 
prophecy: "It is Disraeli all over,(Ze Vaudace,de Vaiidace^ 
toil jours de Vaudace! To buy a partnership can only be 
the source of constant embarrassment." What ven- 
geance does the lapse of a quarter of a century bring 
on men like Hayward; the predicted "source of em- 
barrassment" has proved a constant source of 
strength and of wealth. But, after an event, nobody 
could be wiser than Hayward. "Dizzy's peerage was 
just what I expected," he tells Sir William Stirling- 
Maxwell in 1876. The Gladstonian majority of one 
hundred and twenty at the General Election of 1880 
brought him delight. He counted with glee the 
Liberal successes on the first day. "The beginning,'^ 

249 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

lie says, "always influences the middle and the end — 
people like to be on the winning side." The great 
"moral" victory, which was also a great electoral 
victory, is thus analyzed by one of the men who la- 
bored hardest to obtain it: "People like to be on the 
winning side!" If Abraham Hay ward did but meas- 
ure the public corn in his own bushel, if Success — 
the god, we get to believe, of a hundred of his con- 
temporaries — really was his test of eminence, then 
for him the growing fame of Lord Beaconsfield is Hay- 
ward's epitaph as a reader of men and things. Dis- 
raeli's unsuspecting phrase, "the delectable," remains, 
and will outlive all memory of Hayward's rancors. 

"Dizzy was advertised with Rush" (a then talked- 
about murderer) "as the latest addition to Madame 
Tussaud's Repository": this is another Haywardism, 
a sort of continuation of the "kicking the beam" simile. 
At the end of days, notes of admiration, not notes of 
derision, became his occupation in presence of Mrs. 
Langtry. He even corresponded with Mr. Gladstone 
about that lady's glories and charms. Happy man, he 
had found a real genius at last. 

"There is no place like Bradenham," said he in a 
Eome Letter of 1830. The Disraelis left Bloomsbury 
Home of his Square for the country in 1829; and after 
Youth. a stay at Hyde House, Hyde Heath, took 

up their abode at Bradenham. It was in the August 
of 1830, when he had been three months absent on his 
long foreign tour, that he wrote in effect: "There is 
no place like home" — that home being Bradenham. 

250 



I 



HOME OF HIS YOUTH 

His letters to his sister enshrine the associations the 
place had for her and for him in their loving inter- 
course; and in Endymion, the last of his novels, he 
babbled of that green lawn, those beloved walls, the 
avenue, and the anteroom where he had lain in a sort 
of trance, the beginning of the illness that drove him 
abroad. 

"At the foot of the Berkshire downs, and itself on 
a gentle elevation, there is an old hall with gable 
ends and lattice windows, standing in grounds which 
were once stately, where there are yet glades like ter- 
races of yew-trees which give an air of dignity to the 
neglected scene. Mr. Ferrars" (a man in whom we 
get abundant hints at Isaac D'Israeli) "was persuaded 
to go down alone to reconnoiter the place. It pleased 
him. It was aristocratic, yet singularly inexpensive. 
The house contained an immense hall which reached 
the roof, and which would have become a baronial 
mansion, and a vast staircase in keeping; but the 
living-rooms were moderate, even small, in dimen- 
sions, and not numerous. The land he was expected 
to take consisted only of a few meadows, and a single 
laborer could manage the garden." 

To this pleasant place, within easy reach of Lon- 
don, Disraeli repaired from the stress of town at the 
season's end, or when the writing humor seized him. 
Hither, too, came his friends Bulwer, D'Orsay, and 
Lyndhurst— all having henceforth a good word for 
Bradenham. 

From 1834 until the end of her London career, 

251 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

which was also nearly the end of her life, Disraeli 
maintained a steady friendship for a lady of fame who 
A F ■ d h" _w^^ ^^ some sort a leader, if not strictly 
"Dearest Lady of socicty in her own time, certainly a 

Blessington." , , i ^ n ji.it 

^ leader much followed by ladies, unconven- 

tional as she, who are very much in society to-day. 

Lady Blessington was, if not a beauty, a very 
pretty woman; and if not a woman of "genius" (as 
Landor called her to her face), a woman of talent. All 
allow that she left mediocrity behind her when the 
quality to be rated was — charm. She attracted; she 
was admired by a multitude of men; and by Disraeli 
admired and loved as well. Who can doubt it in face 
of one of these letters? She had the gift of friendship, 
little as her narrow and correct epistolary style may 
hint at it. These letters and stories seem to make up, 
in conventionalism, to the violated conventions with 
which unkind circumstance had associated her early 
womanhood. In her courage, her industry, her enter- 
prise — not often the virtues of a rich and brilliant 
woman — she was great. It is this slight anomaly — ■ 
this combination of manly qualities with luxurious 
life, with a conspicuously showy menage, and with ex- 
ceedingly insipid and sentimental literature, that 
makes Lady Blessington, whichever way the mood 
takes you, interesting or uninteresting. 

She was born in 1779, in Ireland, one of the six 
children of Edmund Power, a rollicking squire of the 
time, spirited and needy at his best; at his worst vio- 
lent and drunken. This father, on the verge of ruin, 
gave Marguerite in marriage, in her childhood (she 

252 



A FRIENDSHIP 

was little more than fifteen), to a half-insane and 
brutal Captain Farmer, from whom — after three un- 
happy months — she found courage to part, returning 
to the minor misery of her father's house. Thence, 
after three humiliating years, under fear of the return 
from India of her drunken husband, she departed, 
placing herself under the protection of Captain Jen- 
kins. Some years later he ceded her to Lord Blessing- 
ton, who offered a legitimate marriage, then made 
possible by the death of Captain Farmer. She was 
not quite thirty when she assumed the name she was 
to make so ornamental. Her husband had had some 
public misadventures in regard to a former marriage, 
and this fact, added to Lady Blessington's past, put 
their position definitely outside the rather arbitrarily 
and capriciously placed fence of society. 

But her house in St. James's Square was the re- 
sort of all the clever and great men from Wellington 
to Durham, Napoleon (afterward the Third) to Dis- 
raeli. When the Whigs had Holland House for their 
headquarters. Lord Durham's party foregathered at 
^'that woman's," whom Lady Holland did not "know." 
Lady Blessington, as a widow, had her solitude en- 
livened by Count D'Orsay, a man whose brilliant 
parts are somewhat obscured by his brilliant adorn- 
ment, and his great talents by his great debts. To 
him had been given in marriage Lord Blessington's 
young stepdaughter — and with her a great fortune. 
In this case, strange to say, the fortune lasted longer 
than the alliance, from which we may judge that the 
alliance ended almost at once; a Frenchman of the 

253 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

reigning house became the ally of the girl D'Orsay 
found impossible. D'Orsay himself, in his last and 
evil days, after Lady Blessington's death, said she had 
been "a mother" to him — "understand me," he added, 
speaking to Dickens, "a mother." 

At Gore House, Kensington, Lady Blessington 
made amends to herself for other ills of life by her 
splendid salon, by furniture which must have been in 
the shocking taste of the time, but was "gorgeous" 
in the eyes of a Greek professor and an American 
printer; by her carriage; by her box at the' opera; by 
her dress; and, in time, by "literature." Probably her 
luxuries avenged her on the ladies who did not call — 
an exterior consolation; while her novels, and The 
Book of Beauty, and The Keepsake — ornamental annuals 
which she edited^gave her a more real comfort; for 
the praises of many people of importance encouraged 
her to take herself seriously as a Woman of Letters. 
D'Orsay was grossly extravagant; Lady Blessington 
shared his "difficulties," and died much impoverished 
and downfallen, in Paris, in 1849. The exile guest of 
Gore House in old times, become Prince President of 
the Republic, did not give her a grateful welcome to 
his future capital. He had been a puzzle in the draw- 
ing-room of Gore House — "a deep man," said some, 
"a stupid man," said others, a romantic or a vulgar 
conspirator, or perhaps both. Disraeli had thought 
he would never visit Paris again, but now he had a 
new inducement, he told her, faithful to the end to the 
"Lady of Gore House," to whom the tenderest pas- 
sage of any letter of his yet published was addressed, 

254 



A FRIENDSHIP 

and to whom, at once after his marriage, he paid the 
respect of making her acquainted with his wife. The 
following letters may be conveniently grouped to- 
gether here. 

"T/ie great object of human legislation that people 
should never be happy together. ^^ 

' 'Bradenham, 
"August 5th, 1834. 

"I was so sorry to leave London without being a 
moment alone with you; but although I came to the 
opera the last night on purpose. Fate was against us. 
I did not reach this place until Sunday, very ill indeed 
from the pangs of parting. Indeed, I feel as desolate 
as a ghost, and I do not think that I ever shall be able 
to settle to anything again. It is a great shame, when 
people are happy together, that they should be ever 
separated; but it seems the great object of all human 
legislation that people should never be happy to- 
gether. 

"My father I find better than I expected, and much 
cheered by my presence. I delivered him all your kind 
messages. He is now very busy on his History of Eng- 
lish Literature, in which he is far advanced. I am mis- 
taken if you will not delight in these volumes. They 
are full of new views of the history of our language, 
and indeed of our country, for the history of a State 
is necessarily mixed up with the history of its litera- 
ture. 

"For myself, I am doing nothing. The western 
breeze favors an al fresco existence, and I am seated 
with a pipe under a spreading sycamore, solemn as 
a pasha. I wish you would induce Hookham to en- 
trust me with Agathon, that mad Byronic novel. What 
do you think of the modern French novelists, and is 
it worth my while to read them, and if so, what do 

255 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

you recommend me? What of Balzac? Is he better 
than Sue and Hugo? I ask you these questions be- 
cause you will give me short answers, like all people 
who are masters of their subject. 

''I suppose it is vain to hope to see my dear D'Or- 
say here; I wish indeed he would come. Here is a 
cook by no means contemptible. He can bring his 
horses if he like, but I can mount him. Adieu, dear 
Lady Blessington; some day I will try to write you 
a more amusing letter; at present I am in truth ill 
and sad." 

[Bradbnham, 1834] 
"Dearest Lady Blessington: I have intended 
to return the books and send you these few lines 
every day, and I am surprised that I could have so 
long omitted doing anything as writing to you. We 
are all delighted with the portraits; my sister is col- 
lecting those of all my father's friends; her collection 
will include almost every person of literary celebrity 
from the end of the Johnsonian era, so your fair face 
arrived just in time. I am particularly delighted with 
Parris's portrait, which I had never seen before. 

"I have read the article on Coleridge in the 
Quarterly, but do not agree with you in holding it to 
be written by Lockhart. It is too good. L.'s style has 
certainly the merit of being peculiar. I know none so 
meager, harsh, and clumsy, or more felicitous in the 
jumble of commonplace metaphors. I think the pres- 
ent reviewal must be by Nelson Coleridge, a nephew 
of the poet and a cleverish sort of fellow, though 
a prig. 

"You give me the same advice as my father ever 
has done about dotting down the evanescent feelings 
of youth: but like other excellent advice, I fear it will 
prove unprofitable. I have a horror of journalizing, 

256 



A FRIENDSHIP 

and indeed of writing of all description. With me 
execution is ever a labor and conception a delight. 
Although a great traveler, I never kept a diary in my 
life." 

His letters home very happily serve as such over a 
particularly interesting period. 

[Bradenham, October- 11th, 1834.] 

"My dear Lady Blessington: My absence at 
quarter sessions, where I was bored to death, prevent- 
ed me instantly answering your letter. I hope, how- 
ever, you will receive this before your departure. I 
sympathize with your sufferings; my experience un- 
happily assures me how ably you describe them. This 
golden autumn ought to have cured us all. I myself, 
in spite of the sunshine, have been a great invalid. In- 
deed, I know not how it is, but I am never well, save 
in action, and then I feel immortal. I am ashamed of 
being 'nervous.' Dyspepsia always makes me wish 
for a civil war. In the meantime, I amuse myself by 
county politics. 

"I received yesterday a letter, most sprightly and 
amusing, from Bulwer, dated Limerick. He is about 
to return to Dublin, and talks of going to Spain. 

"I am ashamed that I must confess to him that 
I have not read Pompeii, but alas! a London bookseller 
treats us provincials with great contempt, and in 
spite of reiterated epistles, and promises as numer- 
ous, I have not yet received the much-wished tomes. 
My father sends his kindest regards. As for myself, 
I am dying for action, and rust like a Damascus saber 
in the sheath of a poltroon. 

"Adieu! dear friend; we shall meet on your re- 
turn. 

"D." 
18 257 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

{February, 1836.] 

^^My dearest Lady: Early in March there are to 
be fifty members elected into the Carlton by the mem- 
bers at large. A strong party of my friends, Lord L.^ 
Lord Chandos, Stuart de Rothesay, etc., are very 
active in my behalf, and I think among the leaders of 
our party my claims will be recognized; but doubtless 
there is a sufficient alloy of dunces even among the 
Conservatives, and I have no doubt there will be a 
stout opposition to me. Although I will not canvass 
myself, I wish my friends to do so most earnestly. I 
know from personal experience that one word from 
you would have more effect upon me than letters from 
all the lords in Xdom. I wish therefore to enlist you on 
my side, and will take the liberty of sending you a list 
to-morrow." 

Writing a month later to his sister, Disraeli was 
able to say: 

"I carried the Carlton; the opposition was not in- 
considerable in the Committee, but my friends were 
firm. Four hundred candidates, and all, in their own 
opinion, with equal claims!" 

[Bradenham, Spring, 1837.] 

"]\Iy dear Lady: Although it is little more than 
a fortnight since I quitted your truly friendly and 
hospitable roof, both of which I shall always remem- 
ber with deep and lively gratitude, it seems to me at 
least a far more awful interval of time. I have waited 
for a serene hour to tell you of my doings; but serene 
hours are rare, and therefore I will not be deluded 
into waiting any longer. In spite of every obstacle 
in the shape of harassed feelings and other disagree- 
able accidents of life, I have not forgotten the fair 

258 



A FRIENDSHIP 

Venetia, who has grown under my paternal care, and 
has much increased in grace, I hope, as in stature, or 
rather dimensions. She is truly like her prototype, 

the child of love, 
Though born in bitterness and nurtured in convulsion ; 

but I hope she will prove a source of consolation to 
her parent, and also to her godmother, for I consider 
you to stand in that relation to her. I do not think 
that you will find any golden hint of our musing 
strolls has been thrown away upon me; and I should 
not be surprised if, in six weeks, she may ring the bell 
at your hall door, and request admittance, where I 
know she will find at least one sympathizing friend. 

"I have of course no news from this extreme soli- 
tude. My father advances valiantly with his great 
enterprise,^ but works of that caliber are hewn out of 
a granite with slow and elaborate strokes. Mine are 
but plaster-of-paris casts, or rather statues of snow 
that melt as soon as they are fashioned. 

"D'Orsay has written me kind letters, which al- 
ways enspirit me. How are my friends, if I have any? 
At any rate, how is Bulwer? I can scarcely expect 
you to find time to write to me, but I need not say 
what pleasure your handwriting would afford me, not 
merely in penciled notes in a chance volume. This 
is all very stupid, but I could not be quite silent. 

^'Ever your Dis." 

The Byronic lines quoted in the letter appeared on 
the title-page when Colburn brought out "Venetia: By 

' Advanced age and the failure of sight prevented Isaac D'Israeli from car- 
rying out his scheme for a history of English authorship. The Amenities of 
Literature was a fragment of the larger work he had designed. Sending a 
copy to Bulwer, he said : "I remain in darkness and I regret to say that my 
philosophy does not equal my misfortune." 

259 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

the Author of Henrietta Temple'^ that year. With 
Byron as Cadurcis and Shelley as Marmion Herbert — 
the common allotment — readers must allow for some- 
thing of a jumble between the two characters. Daily 
details of the poet who carried through Europe "the 
pageant of his bleeding heart," and prattled about 
the names of his washerwomen during the progress, 
were very common property; but, for his delineation 
of Shelley, Disraeli found access to what were then 
byways of information. Dr. Richard Garnett, who 
records this, adds the ohiter dictum that Shelley, had 
he lived, would have found Theodora in Lothair his 
favorite heroine of modern fiction. 

[F7'o?n Bradenham House, toward the close of 1837.] 
*'I see by the papers that you have quitted the 
shores of the 'far-resounding sea,' and resumed your 
place in the most charming of modern houses. I 
therefore venture to recall my existence to your mem- 
ory, and request the favor of hearing some intelli- 
gence of yourself, which must always interest me. 
Have you been well, happy, and prosperous? And has 
that pen, plucked assuredly from the pinion of a bird- 
of-paradise, been -idle or creative? My lot has been 
as usual here, though enlivened by the presence of 
Lady Sykes, who has contrived to pay us two visits, 
and the presence of Lord Lyndhurst, who also gave 
us a fortnight of his delightful society. 

"I am tolerably busy, and hope to give a good ac- 
count of myself and doings when we meet, which I 
trust will be soon. How goes that 'great lubber,' the 
Public, and how fares that mighty hoax, the World? 
Who of our friends has distinguished or extinguished 
himself or herself? In short, as the hart for the 

260 



MEMORIES OF TRAVEL 

waterside, I pant for a little news, but chiefly of your 
fair and agreeable self. 

"T/ie Book of Beauty will soon, I fancy, charm the 
public with its presence. Where have you been? in 

Hampshire I heard from Lord L . How is the most 

delightful of men and best of friends, the Admirable 
Crichton? I don't mean Willis, who, I see, has mar- 
ried, a fortune I suppose, though it doth not sound 
like one. How and where is Bulwer? How are the 
Whigs and how do they feel? All who know you send 
kind greetings, and all who have not that delight, kind 
wishes. Peace be within your walls and plenteous- 
ness within your palace. Vale! Yours affectionately, 

"Dis." 

To Lady Blessington. 

[1838.] 

"My dear Lady : I should be mortified if The Book 
of Beauty appeared without my contribution, however 
Memories of trifling. I have something on the stocks 
Travel Miti- f^j, jqu^ but it is too elaborate to finish 
mentarv ^^^^ ^^ ^^^ present tone of my mind; but 

Imprisonment, if you like a Syrian sketch of four or five 
pages, you shall have it in two or three days." 

If this "Syrian sketch" occupied for "two or three 
days" the pen of Disraeli, which, at normal times, 
flowed so freely, either those days must have been dis- 
turbed ones or "the present tone of my mind" been 
unfavorable to composition. He was in Parliament; 
but he had debts; and the death of his helpful col- 
league, Mr. Wyndham Lewis, in March, 1838, gave him 
present anxieties. Following these, before haven was 
reached, were the perturbations of "impending matri- 
mony." The mood may be indexed by two little inci- 

261 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

dents of the June of that year, when his brother 
Ralph's kindness supplied the Court suit which en- 
abled him to see the Coronation, and when the gold 
medal which he got as a member of Parliament was 
presented at once to Mrs. Wyndham Lewis. In any 
case, it must have been a little solace to him to recur 
in memory to the orange and lemon groves about 
Jaffa ("that agreeable town"!), of the Turk who there 
smoked his narghile, read Arabian poetry, knelt 
Mecca-ward at sunset, and, in Disraeli's favor, mar- 
ried gracious speech with gracious act. 

The "Admirable Crichton" of the last note en- 
livened Bradenham more than once with his presence: 

[1839.] 

"We send back our dearest D'Orsay^ with some 
of the booty of yesterday's sport as our homage to 
you. His visit has been very short but very charming, 
and everybody here loves him as much as you and 
I do." 

Shortly before his mariage, in August, 1839, Dis- 
raeli gave to Mrs. Wyndham Lewis — a great admirer, 
he says, of aphoristic writing — Lady Blessington's 
then new book. Desultory Thoughts and Reflections. The 
recipient was to mark what she approved. Says the 
giver: "The volume is in consequence lying on her 
table with scarcely a margin not deeply scored." The 
copy given was a presentation one sent by the author 
to Disraeli, who adds: "I should have written to 
thank you for this agreeable recollection of me, but 
have intended every day to, do so in person." 

> After some sport at Bradenham. 

262 



MEMORIES OF TRAVEL 

"It is indeed a long time since we met, but I flatter 
and console myself that we shall meet very soon and 
very often. But in truth, with a gouty parent and 
impending matrimony, the House of Commons, and 
the mechanical duties of society, the last two months 
have been terribly monopolized: but I can assure you 
that a day seldom passes that I do not think or speak 
of you, and I hope I shall always be allowed by you to 
count the Lady of Gore House among my dearest and 
most valued friends. D'Orsay was charming yester- 
day." 

To the same friend he wrote, a few weeks after 
his marriage: "I remember your kind wish that we 
should meet before our departure, and if not incon- 
venient to you I would propose calling at Gore House 
to-morrow with my dear Mary Anne, who, I am sure, 
will be delighted by finding herself under a roof that 
has proved to me at all times so hospitable and de- 
voted. I hope that his engagements will not prevent 
our meeting our friend Alfred, for I hardly suppose 
we shall have another opportunity of being together 
for some time. I should imagine about three would 
not be unsuitable to you." 

[April, 1849.] 

"We returned to town on the 16th, and a few days 
after I called at Gore House, but you were gone. It 
was a pang; for though absorbing duties of my life 
have prevented me of late from passing as much time 
under that roof as it was once my happiness and good 
fortune through your kindness to do, you are well as- 
sured that my heart never changed for an instant to 
its inmates, and that I invariably entertained for 
them the same interest and affection. 

263 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

"Had I been aware of your intentions, I would 
have come up to town earlier, and especially to have 
said 'adieu' — mournful as that is. 

"I thought I should never pay another visit to 
Paris, but I have now an object in doing so. All the 
world here will miss you very much, and the charm 
with which you invested existence; but for your own 
happiness, I am persuaded you have acted wisely. 
Every now and then in this life we require a great 
change; it wonderfully revives the sense of existence. 
I envy you; pray, if possible, let me sometimes hear 
from you." 

"So much for 'the maddest of all acts' and my 

Uncle G 's prescience!" he said in a Home Letter 

in 1837. Disraeli must be forgiven if, for 

"Uncle G ." 

once in his life, he made a remark of the 
"I told you so" kinship; for the occasion was that 
of his first return to Parliament — Maidstone, 1837. 

More about "Uncle G " may be gleaned from the 

following domestic revelations made by Sir Vincent 
Caillard, whose grandmother (a Basevi) was Lord 
Beaconsfield's cousin: 

"When young Benjamin Disraeli started on his 
political career, he was, it is no secret, hard pressed 
for want of means. He applied to his uncle, Mr. 
George Basevi, who thereupon took counsel with his 
son, Benjamin Disraeli's first cousin, Nathaniel 
Basevi, an eminent conveyancing barrister. Neither 
uncle nor cousin had any sympathy for the flighty 
schemes, as they thought, of an ambitious dreamer. 
Poor Benjamin had no security to offer but his bound- 
less confidence in himself, and he met with a point- 

264 



"UNCLE G- 



blank refusal. This he would not at first accept. He 
continued eloquently to plead his cause, and making 
no impression, he finally lost his temper, and told the 
Basevis very pointedly what he thought of them. 
They, on the other hand, told him in return, for what 
they hoped would be his good, what they thought of 
him, and in the course of their exposition treated him 
to the name of 'adventurer,' which pleased them so 
much that the definition stuck in their minds, and be- 
came to them a solid truth. Many years afterward, 
when the uncle was dead and the cousin, Mr. Nathan- 
iel Basevi, had withdrawn from practice and settled 
in Torquay, Mr. Disraeli, who had then already been 
once Prime Minister, happened to visit the watering- 
place. It was strongly suggested to Mr. Basevi that, 
Disraeli having now won his spurs, the old ill-feeling 
should be forgotten, and that he should become rec- 
onciled with his successful cousin. He was even 
given to understand that Mr. Disraeli would be not 
only ready, but glad, to meet him half-way. But the 
sturdy and obstinate old gentleman would have none 
of it. He stuck to it that 'Dizzy' was nothing but 
a political adventurer, and with such a man, said he, 
he would have nothing to do; he would neither call 
upon him nor be called upon. 

"Years after that affair, not long after the Con- 
gress of Berlin and the return of Lord Beaconsfield to 
England with 'Peace with honor' in his hand, I was 
staying with my great-aunt, Mrs. Wing, sister of my 
grandmother and of Mr. George Basevi before men- 
tioned, who was then eighty-two, and she showed me 

265 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

with much pride a letter she had received from her 
great cousin. For all that long lifetime she had taken 
her brother's part; but, she told me, 'Now Ben has 
done a really great thing, and shown that he had more, 
in him than we any of us thought, so when he came 
back from Berlin I thought I would just write him a 
line of congratulation; and here is his answer!' It 
was an altogether charming letter, beginning 'My 
dear cousin,' relating the pleasure of the Prime Min- 
ister at the old lady's having remembered him, and 
his gratification at his success at Berlin, and, if I re- 
member rightly, inquiring after certain members of 
the family. I am only sorry that my recollection of 
the terms of the letter is so meager, though I am cer- 
tain of its purport. Mrs. Wing has long since died, 
and what became of the letter I know not. But I hope 
that it may be preserved somewhere." 

Disraeli had no liking for lawyers as a class, 
though among them he found fast friends — Benjamin 
Law-Maker: Austen, Solicitor, and Lyndhurst, Lord 
Law-Breaker. Chancellor, the most helpful he had in 
early life, and Philip Rose, faithful to the last. Not 
improbably the uncongenial drudgery his turbulent 
teens endured at the desk of his father's lawyers 
sowed the prejudice against' all that appertains to 
John Doe and Richard Roe; and, later, the entry of 
his name at Lincoln's Inn, where he kept several 
terms, since it led to nothing, not even to his being 
"called," must rank among the failures of one to 
whom failure was "hell," the hell of an opportunity 

266 



LAW-MAKER ; LAW-BREAKER 

once lost and therefore lost forever — "eternal loss." 
Perhaps, too, the cold eye turned upon his early — and, 
indeed, his later — ambitions by his uncle, George 
Basevi, of the Parliamentary Bar, gave increase to 
his dislike. He had no doubt his ovi^n abandonment of 
the "learned profession," as its professors call it, in 
his mind, and was not innocent of a fling at his uncle, 
when he wrote in Vivian Grey: "The Bar — pooh! Law 
and bad jokes till we are forty; and then, with the 
most brilliant success, the prospect of gout and a cor- 
onet." An early acquaintance formed during his stay 
at Gibraltar in 1830 afforded him another expression 
of spleen. "The Judge-Advocate," he said, "is that 
Mr. Baron Field who once wrote a book, and whom 
all the world took for a noble; but it turned out that 
Baron was to him what Thomas is to other men. I 
found him a bore and vulgar; a Storks without breed- 
ing; consequently I gave him a lecture on caves which 
made him stare, and he has avoided me ever since." 
Then he refers to a compagnon de voyage who, though 
blind, deaf, and dumb, was yet "more endurable than 
the noisy, obtrusive jargonic judge, who" — says he, 
going from the particular to the general — "is a true 
lawyer, ever illustrating the obvious, explaining the 
evident, and expatiating on the commonplace." 

But the Bar of England was not aware of this 
indictment when, in 1838, Disraeli entered upon an 
encounter with it, and delivered a speech, in the mat- 
ter of it as well as in the circumstances of its delivery, 
one of the most remarkable he ever made. He was 
vanquished then; but that he had every claim to vie- 

267 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI . 

tory will henceforth be the verdict of the great jury 
of his fellow-countrymen. Disraeli had successfully 
contested Maidstone with Mr. Wyndham Lewis in the 
July of 1837. Talk among the beaten party about a 
petition followed; but Disraeli knew better. He bade 
his sister clear her head of "all nonsense" about peti- 
tions. "There is not a safer seat in England than 
mine. They have not a shadow to work on." The 
event was as good as Disraeli's word; no petition was 
filed. A little later, the death of Mr. Wyndham Lewis 
caused a vacancy at Maidstone, for which Mr. Fector 
offered himself, was selected, but retired on a petition. 
Mr. Disraeli had no responsibility for this election; 
but his name, according to report, was dragged 
in by Mr. Austin,^ the leading counsel against Mr. 
Fector. In the following letter Mr. Disraeli joined 
issue with Mr. Austin: 

"Maidstone Election Committee. 

"To the Editor of the ^Morning Post.^ 

"Carlton Club, 

"June 5th [1838]. 

"Sir: In opening the case of the petitioners 
against the return of Mr. Fector for Maidstone, on 

' Mr. Charles Austin, of Brandeston Hall, Suffolk, who became in due 
course Q.C., J. P., chairman of Quarter Sessions, a Bencher of the Middle 
Temple, and leader of the Parliamentary Bar, died in December, 1874, aged 
seventy-five. He was the son of Mr. Jonathan Austin, of Ipswich, and mar- 
ried, in 1856, Harriet Jane, daughter of Captain Ralph Mitford Preston In- 
gilby, brother of Sir Henry John Ingilby, Bart., of Ripley. He had two 
more lasting distinctions — he lived to see the young Parliamentarian whom 
he arraigned Prime Minister of England ; and he shook the hand of Edward 
FitzGerald, the hand that did the Ruhaiyat. 

268 



LAW-MAKER; LAW-BREAKER 

Friday last, Mr. Austin stated, that 'Mr. Disraeli, at 
the general election, had entered into engagements 
with the electors of Maidstone, and made pecuniary 
promises to them, which he had left unfulfilled.' 

"I should have instantly noticed this assertion of 
the learned gentleman, had not a friend, to whose 
opinion I was bound to defer, assured me that Mr. 
Austin, by the custom of his profession, was author- 
ized to make any statement from his brief which he 
was prepared to substantiate or to attempt to sub- 
stantiate. 

"The inquiry into the last Maidstone election has 
now terminated, and I take the earliest opportunity 
of declaring, and in a manner the most unqualified 
and unequivocal, that the statement of the learned 
gentleman is utterly false. There is not the slightest 
shadow of a foundation for it. I myself never either 
directly or indirectly entered into any pecuniary en- 
gagements with, or made any pecuniary promises to, 
the electors of Maidstone; and, therefore, I can not 
have broken any or left any unfulfilled. The whole 
expenses of the contest in question were defrayed by 
my lamented colleague, and I discharged to him my 
moiety of those expenses, as is well known to those 
who are entitled to any knowledge on the subject. 

"Sir, I am informed that it is quite useless, and 
even unreasonable, in me to expect from Mr. Austin 
any satisfaction for those impertinent calumnies, be- 
cause Mr. Austin is a member of an honorable pro- 
fession, the first principle of whose practise appears 
to be that they may say anything provided they be 
paid for it. The privilege of circulating falsehood 
with impunity is delicately described as doing your 
duty toward your client, which appears to be a very 
different process to doing your duty toward your 
neighbor. 

269 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

"This may be the usage of Mr. Austin's profession, 
and it may be the custom of society to submit to its 
practise, but for my part, it appears to me to be 
nothing better than a disgusting and intolerable 
tyranny, and I, for one, shall not bow to it in 
silence. 

"I, therefore, repeat that the statement of Mr. 
Austin was false, and inasmuch as he never attempted 
to substantiate it, I conclude that it was, on his side, 
but the blustering artifice of a rhetorical hireling, 
availing himself of the vile license of a loose-tongued ^ 
lawyer, not only to make a statement which was false, 
but to make it with a consciousness of its falsehood. 

"I am, sir, your obedient and faithful servant, 

"B. Disraeli." 

Then all Lincoln's Inn took counsel together. 
Here, indeed, was a slur cast upon the profession that 
— alone among professions — continually proclaimed 
itself "honorable," its members (until Mr. Justice 
Grantham became an exception to prove the rule) per- 
petually congratulating one another in public on their 
own extraordinary rectitude and dignity, their wis- 
dom and their purity. Lacking public appreciation, 
they could at least punish public depreciation when, 
as now, it came in the unwary guise of a technical 
contempt of court. For this Disraeli was indicted. 
One notes that he could have outmatched them all by 
going down to the House of Commons, where even a 
very young member will enlist. sympathy on a ques- 

' Happily it was the alliterative affinity of "law" and "loose" that 
caused the same words to reappear in conjunction in the last reference he 
made to lawyers, nearly half a century later : "All lawyers are loose in their 
youth," says Bertie Tremaine in Endymion, 

270 



LAW-MAKER ; LAW-BREAKER 

tion of Privilege. He could have treated Mr. Austin's 
reported speech as a Breach of the Privilege of the 
House; called Austin to its Bar; filled Austin's re- 
bellious yet apparently acquiescing ears (what a 
different world it would be, were ears automatically 
expressive of truth!) with pompous periods from the 
Speaker about the glories and virtues of the Com- 
mons. For the Commons and the lawyers, talking 
collectively, are pretty well equals in self-adula- 
tion. 

Disraeli, however, dropped the conventional Par- 
liament-man and appeared as only himself, in the now 
almost forgotten case of "The Queen v. Disraeli." 
The Queen was as young a Queen as he a legislator; 
it was the first time that he saw together the two 
names that in after years no versus should disjoin. 
The defendant Disraeli had no course but to plead 
guilty, and to appear in person to pray the judgment 
of the Court. The affidavits were duly read, and the 
Attorney-General rose to discharge w^hat he, of 
course, called his "duty" in this, equally of course, 
"very painful case." A painter or an author fulfils 
his commission without an allusion to his "duty": the 
one to his patron, the other to his publishers — ^he does 
it honestly. Doctors apply their skill with a human- 
ity that loses nothing by its silence; while the gar- 
dener or the groom who protests his "duty" instead 
of speaking of his employment or his job would ex- 
cite his master's suspicion. When barristers follow 
suit and talk of retainers or instructions, the Law 
Courts will be reclaimed for candor. 

271 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

Disraeli knew and disliked the "jargonic" tongue 
of "the gentlemen of the long robe"; he disliked it 
then, and he disliked it later when he listened, in an- 
other place, to Attorneys-General of his own appoint- 
ing; to all the greedy "silk"-worms who go to the 
House of Commons for the green meat they can get: 
they come; they are fed; they go; they are forgotten. 
But the Attorney-General of 1838 — the future Lord 
Chancellor Campbell — is the one Disraeli now hears 
mouthing the inevitable word that men misuse in the 
Law Courts, though they are to wander westward 
past the monument of Nelson: "Mr, Austin has done 
nothing more than his duty to his client strictly re- 
quired him to do." 

What seems more to the point for the reader to- 
day, Mr, Austin had really never used the words that 
were imputed to him. So said the Attorney-General, 
Sir J. (afterward Lord Chancellor) Campbell; who, 
moreover, showed his elevation of feeling by compli- 
menting the offender in that "jargon" of the profes- 
sion Disraeli had disdainfully docketed, "It gives me 
most sincere [jargonic] regret to see a gentleman of 
the [jargonic] respectability and talent of Mr. Dis- 
raeli standing on the floor of the court to receive the 
sentence of your [jargonic] lordships." Again: "I 
think he would not have done anything inconsistent 
with that high character for honor which he has ever 
borne if he had without hesitation expressed regret 
for the letter he had written." The attorney could 
not have been more civil had he foreseen in the hap- 
less defendant the future dispenser of the Woolsack. 

272 



LAW-MAKER ; LAW-BREAKER 

No doubt it was public policy to let the criminal off 
lightly, so that the crime was admitted; for public 
opinion was not unmindful of the issue raised. Sir 
F. Pollock and Sir W. Follett, both of whom held the 
office of Attorney-General in the ensuing Tory Admin- 
istration, were ranged with the Attorney-General — a 
formidable array against a layman; but they modestly 
refrained from offering any observations. Then Mr. 
Disraeli, environed, and with nothing to do but sub- 
mit to the foregone conclusion, made perforce his 
Galileo-like submission: 

"I will for a short time avail myself of the permis- 
sion of the Bench to offer some observations which 
may induce it to visit this misdemeanor in a spirit of 
leniency. I stand before the Court confessedly guilty, 
not from any dislike to enter into an investigation of 
the circumstances which have induced me to commit 
this trespass, but because I have been advised that, 
whatever the moral effect might be, the legal effect 
could be but one — namely, a conviction. I thought 
that, under all these circumstances, it would not be 
decorous by a prolonged litigation to resist the un- 
questionable result, nor was I anxious to deprive my 
honorable, my learned antagonist of an earlier ter- 
mination of the impending issue. It would be affecta- 
tion in me to pretend that the (I will say, unfortunate) 
letter which has originated these proceedings was 
written for the atmosphere of Westminster Hall, but 
I believe if the data of the supposed facts upon which 
this letter has been published had been correct, my 
offense by the law would have been the same. Yet, 
19 273 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

under these circumstances, I should have applied with 
some confidence to your lordships — not as administra- 
tors of the law, but as members of the great social 
body — to look upon that transgression not only with 
mercy, but with special indulgence; and it is my wish 
to place the feelings and circumstances that induced 
me to write the letter before the Court, that I prevail 
on your lordships even now to look at my offense in 
the same spirit. 

"The learned Attorney-General has stated that 
this misconception arose from a report in a public 
newspaper — in a report of a speech alleged to have 
been delivered before a Parliamentary tribunal. That 
report had contained allegations against my char- 
acter and conduct of no common severity. I was 
accused of having bribed the constituency whom it 
was my honor to represent, and afterward having left 
unfulfilled the promise by which I had induced them to 
give me their suffrages. This accusation was of a most 
grievous character — an accusation of public corrup- 
tion and private dishonesty — and I hope your lord- 
ships will for a moment consider the feelings of a man 
not very old and experienced in public life, when he 
found an accusation of this kind made by a learned 
member of the Bar before a public tribunal of the 
country; and although I had not immediately 
adopted the authenticity of that report, yet I submit 
that though it was possible the insult might not 
have been intended, the injury had already been ex- 
perienced, for the report appeared in the evening 
papers, appeared the next morning in the morning 

274 



LAW-MAKER ; LAW-BREAKER 

papers, and had been copied into perhaps every pro- 
vincial paper throughout the Idngdom, I confess my 
feelings at that moment were considerably excited. 
I had lived to learn by experience that calumny once 
circulated is more or less forever current. You might 
explain the misapprehension and you might convict 
the falsehood, but there is indeed an immortal spirit 
in mendacity which at times is most difficult to cope 
with, and most dangerous to meet; and I confess when 
I adverted to the serious injury I had already expe- 
rienced, and observing also that there were no char- 
acteristics which might induce me to doubt the au- 
thenticity of the report, I felt myself writhing under 
•feelings which I regret to remember. 

"But I did not commit an act of such rash pre- 
cipitancy as to write a libel upon a newspaper re- 
port. I took steps to ascertain its accuracy or inac- 
curacy; I applied to a member of that tribunal before 
which the speech had been delivered. I found him 
rather a reluctant communicant, but he explicitly de- 
clared that the report was accurate. Under those 
circumstances I happened to meet an eminent mem- 
ber of the Bar, and one well versed in proceedings 
before the House of Commons. I mentioned to him 
the grievance under which I labored, and the abso- 
lute necessity of my taking some steps to put a ter- 
mination to the matter; and I had parted with the, 1 
confess, unfortunate impression that any applica- 
tion to a member of the Bar would be fruitless; And 
indeed, if he desired to give me any satisfaction, it 
could not be applied for until I had given him an 

275 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

opportunity of proving the accusation he had made. 
I had waited in consequence, although it was more 
due to my constituents than to myself that some im- 
mediate steps should be taken — I waited until the 
proceedings terminated — as I subsequently learned, 
abruptly terminated; but in the interval I had 
spoken without reserve to those who attended com- 
mittees, that it might reach the ears of the learned 
gentleman, and I regret to think it had not produced 
some explanation which would have rendered the step 
I had afterward taken unnecessary. When I found 
those proceedings had terminated, and when I felt 
that during the delay the accusation had rendered me 
unfit for a seat in the House of Commons, and un- 
worthy of any position in society — that the attack 
had been circulated in every possible way throughout 
the Empire — I found it necessary to take a step which 
should cope with the calumny, and which should be 
decisive. 

"Two courses alone were open to me. I might 
have gone down to my seat in the House of Commons, 
and might have treated it as a breach of privilege. 
I might have made the observations I afterward 
wrote, and, as your lordships know, I might have done 
so there with impunity; but I had a wish not to shield 
myself under my privilege. Late at night I wrote this 
unfortunate letter, and sent it instantly to all the 
newspapers. The Attorney-General seemed to think 
this an aggravation, but your lordships would not 
have had me publish a libel in only one paper, which 
the party might not read, and might only hear of the 

276 



LAW-MAKER ; LAW-BREAKER 

libel from others. I had thought the better mode was 
to publish it in all, that it should be made public by 
every means, 

"I am not here to defend the language of that let- 
ter as regards any individuals or bodies who may be 
referred to in that composition, but I mention the 
haste with which the article was published, because 
there is a common impression that everything that 
appears in print is necessarily composed with the ad- 
vantage of great reflection, and even of revision; but 
I will venture to repeat, that a public journalist 
writes under the same feelings, and subject to the 
same feelings, as persons addressing popular assem- 
blies, and often regrets in the morning what he has 
committed to paper the previous night. I have not 
the slightest wish to vindicate the language of that 
letter, even to save myself from the perils and punish- 
ments that may now await me. I did not consider 
that the system of bribery spoken of by Mr. Austin 
prevailed in any borough, certainly it did not in Maid- 
stone. I did not mean to say that when a new elec- 
tion takes place there, all parties might consider 
themselves properly remunerated for their labor. If 
a man had the purse of Croesus and the primitive lib- 
erality of Timon, there must be some persons dissat- 
isfied; but there is a very important point to which 
I will call your lordships' attention: admitting there 
was such a system — I mean no reflection on the 
learned gentleman, but I must say the introduction 
of my name was most grievous and most unwar- 
ranted." 

277 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

Mr. Disraeli then stated the circumstance of the 
Maidstone election, and proceeded: 

"After I had found I had written a letter, prob- 
ably too violent even if the supposed attack had been 
made, and one which was not warranted by the words 
that were used, I took every step that a man of hon- 
or — that a man who wished not only to be just, but 
most generous — could adopt. I can only say that 
from the time your lordships graciously threw out 
your suggestion, anxious as I am at all times not to 
seem to avoid the consequences of my conduct, wise 
or unwise, right or wrong, I have done everything in 
my power to accomplish that suggestion. I appeared 
against the rule of my counsel, and intimated my in- 
tention to two distinguished members of the Bar, 
one of whom was the honorable member for Liv- 
erpool. My learned counsel did not come into the 
court with his hands tied. I had given him no limita- 
tion as to what was proper to be done, except his own 
conscience. I had told him to act for me as for him- 
self, knowing that he would not put me in a false posi- 
tion, and my honorable friend had said on that occa- 
sion everything which he thought a gentleman should 
say, or that another gentleman should have expected. 
He might have been unfortunate in the result, and 
might not have conveyed all that he had intended, or 
all that he wished, but I am sure my friend had wished 
to convey all that I wjsh to convey now, and he did 
not do it in a niggard spirit. 

"It is enough that I have injured a gentleman who 
was unknown to me, it is enough that I have outraged 

278 



LAW-MAKER; LAW-BREAKER 

his feelings and treated him with injustice, but I hope 
not with injury. I regret what I have done. I not 
only regret, but feel great mortification for what I 
hq^ve done. I am sorry I should have injured the feel- 
ings of any man who had not attempted to injure me. 
I am sorry that, through misconception, I should have 
said anything that could for a moment have annoyed 
the mind of a gentleman of the highest honor and 
integrity. I should myself be satisfied with that ex- 
pression of deep regret and mortification. But, my 
lords, from the manner in which this declaration is 
couched, from several expressions that have fallen at 
various times during these proceedings, from the ani- 
mus which has characterized them within and with- 
out these walls, I can not help fearing that I am 
brought here by one of those fictions of law of which 
I have read, and it is not so much for an offense 
against the law as an offense against lawyers that I 
am now awaiting judgment. My lords, under those 
circumstances I shall appeal with confidence to the 
Bench for protection. I am sure, my lords, you will 
never allow me to be formally arraigned for one of- 
fense and virtually punished for another. My lords, 
I am not desirous of vindicating the expressions used 
in that letter in reference to the profession, any more 
than the expressions used in reference to the individ- 
ual. My lords, I thought the profession had attacked 
me, and I wished to show them that there might be a 
l)lot in their escutcheon. I have no hesitation in say- 
ing that my opinion of the Bar of England in my 
cooler moments can not be very different from that of 

279 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

any man of sense and study. I must, of course, recog- 
nize it as a very important portion of the social com- 
monwealth — one, indeed, of the lustiest limbs of the 
body politic; I know, my lords, to arrive at eminence 
in that profession requires, if not the highest, many 
of the higher qualities of our nature; that to gain 
any station there needs great industry, great learn- 
ing, and great acuteness. I can not forget that from 
the Bar of England have sprung many of our most 
illustrious statesmen, past and present; and all must 
feel, my lords, that to the Bar we owe those adminis- 
trators of justice to whose unimpassioned wisdom we 
appeal with the confidence which I do now. But, my 
lords, I have ever believed, I believe at this moment 
— I see no libel in the expression of that belief, no 
want of taste under the circumstances of the case, in 
expressing it even here — that there is in the princi- 
ples on which the practise of the Bar is based a taint 
or arrogance, I will not say audacity, but of that 
reckless spirit which is the necessary consequence 
of the possession and the exercise of irresponsible 
power. 

"My lords, I am told, and have been told often in 
the course of these proceedings, that I have mistaken 
the nature of the connection that subsists between 
the counsel and the client, and of the consequent priv- 
ileges that accrue from it. It may be so, but I have 
at least adopted that opinion after some literary, if 
not legal, research. The question is one indeed of 
great delicacy and great difficulty; it has been mooted 
on various occasions, at various intervals, during our 

280 



LAW-MAKER; LAW-BREAKER 

late annals; it has been discussed by very learned law- 
yers, it has been illustrated by very profound anti- 
quaries, legal and constitutional; has been made sub- 
ject-matter for philosophical moralists, and even 
touched by the pleasantry of poignant wits. I con- 
fess that I myself have imbibed an opinion that it is 
the duty of a counsel to his client to assist him by all 
possible means, just or unjust, and even to commit, 
if necessary, a crime for his assistance or extrication. 
My lords, this may be an outrageous opinion; but, my 
lords, it is not my own. Allow me to read a descrip- 
tion of the duty of a counsel to a client, and by a 
great authority: 'An advocate, by the sacred duty 
which he owes his client, knows in the discharge of 
his duty but one person in the world — that client and 
none other. To save that client by all expedient 
means; and to protect that client at all hazards and 
costs to all others, and among those others to himself, 
is the highest and most unquestioned of his duties; 
and he must not regard the alarm, the sufferings, the 
torment, the destruction which he may bring upon 
any other. In the spirit of duty, he must go on reck- 
less, even if his fate unhappily should be to involve his 
country in confusion.' 

"Here, my lords, is a sketch, and by a great master; 
here, my lords, is the rationale of the duties of an ad- 
vocate, and drawn up by a Lord Chancellor. In this, 
my lords, is the idea of those duties expressed, before 
the highest tribunal of the country, by the Attorney- 
General of a Queen of England. According to this 
high authority, it is the duty of a counsel, for his 

281 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

client, even to commit treason. If then, my lords, I 
have erred in my estimate of the extent of these 
duties, it can not be said, my lords, that I have erred 
without authority. Nor can this be considered as the 
extravagance of a mere rhetorical ebullition. My 
lords, I read this passage from an edition of the speech 
just published by the noble orator, who, satisfied 
with the fame that it has so long enjoyed, now deems 
it worthy of the immortality of his own revision, and 
has just published this description unaltered, after 
twenty years' reflection, and with its most important 
portions printed in capital letters. And, my lords, I 
ask is there any member of this Bar who has had any 
experience, who has had any substantial practise, any 
sway of business — my lords, I will say more, is there 
any member of this profession, I care not how noble 
his nature or name, how serene his present mind or 
exalted his present station — who can say that in the 
course of a long career, in which this responsible 
power has been exercised, there have not been in- 
stances when the memory of its employment has not 
occasioned him deep regret and lengthened vexation? 
My lords, I have done. I leave my case with confi- 
dence to your merciful consideration, briefly recapit- 
ulating the points on which I have attempted to put 
myself fairly before the Bench and the public. As to 
my offense against the law, I throw myself on your 
lordships' mercy; as to my offense against the individ- 
ual, I have made him that reparation which a gentle- 
man should, under the circumstances, cheerfully offer, 
and with which a gentleman should, in my opinion, 

282 



LAW-MAKER ; LAW-BREAKER 

be cheerfully' content. I make this, my lords, not to 
avoid the consequences of my conduct, for right or 
wrong, good or bad, those consequences I am ever 
ready to encounter; but because I am anxious to 
soothe the feelings which I have unjustly injured, and 
evince my respect to the suggestions of the Bench. 
But as to my offense against the Bar, I do with the 
utmost confidence appeal to your lordships, however 
you may disapprove of my opinions, however objec- 
tionable, however offensive, even however odious they 
may be to you, that you will not permit me to be 
arraigned for one offense and punished for another. 
In a word, my lords, it is to the Bench I look with con- 
fidence to shield me from the vengeance of an irri- 
tated and powerful profession." 

The learned judges having consulted together for 
some minutes, the Attorney-General rose and asked 
permission to address their lordships. 

"Mr. Disraeli," he said, "had stated that he had 
given his learned counsel instructions, on showing 
cause, to do whatever that counsel should think 
proper; and Mr. Disraeli had, in the concluding part 
of his address, made, as it seemed to him (the Attor- 
ney-General) and to his friends Sir F, Pollock and Sir 
W. Follett, an ample apology; he had said that he had 
no desire to injure the feelings of Mr, Austin, and had 
expressed his deep mortification and regret for the 
language he had used. If such a concession had been 
made before the application, their lordships never 
would have been troubled with it. If their lordships 
were now of opinion that the ample apology Mr. Dis- 

■ 283 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

raeli had made ought to be satisfactory, Mr. Austin 
was satisfied." 

The fight was now over; but there remained a few 
parleyings among people of self-importance: 

Lord Denman: "Then I understand you to say, 
that in consequence of the satisfactory terms of that 
apology, you do not feel called upon to pray for judg- 
ment on the defendant, provided we think we can, 
with any degree of propriety, pass over his offense 
unpunished? " 

The Attorney-General having replied affirmative- 
ly. Lord Denman said: "The prayer for judgment 
having been withdrawn, it is infinitely more to the 
satisfaction of the Court that the matter should 
rest on reparation and apology, than that the law 
should be put in force against a person who has 
now made them. We must take them to be most 
ample and satisfactory after the application now 
made, and this matter will be considered at an 
end." 

"Mr. Disraeli then withdrew." 

(One imagines the reporter accented the "then" — 
Galileo Disraeli really did withdraw this time!) 

But no, not altogether was that strange episode 
at an end. It is not ended even now. A writer in the 
press at the time declared: "The principle on which 
Mr. Disraeli has acted in manfully coming forward is 
just and proper, to arraign and condemn an unwar- 
rantable and usurped privilege of a body of men who 
arrogate to themselves an exclusive right to launch 
out calumnies upon persons in their presence or in 

2S4 



PUBLIC OPINION ABUSED 

their absence." That sentiment has been echoed ever 
since, and has found almost official expression from 
the Bar Council of late; so that when, in the good 
time coming — those palmy days that will yet have 
(jates — the victory of that Justice from whom the 
Court takes its name becomes the common and domi- 
nant desire of opposing counsel — not the winning of 
the case, not personal nor the client's success — Dis- 
raeli may be accorded the statue of a valiant and, for 
all his submission, an unvanquished legal reformer, 
the pioneer who got the nasty buffets that the front 
line must ever encounter. 



What may be called the first letter of Disraeli's 

to find its way into a high political memoir was that 

which he addressed to the third Lord 

♦'That Public 

Opinion which Londonderry concerning the career of his 

has been too f ^mous brother. Hitherto Disraeli's pub- 
long Abused." 

lie letters had been a sort of popular as- 
sembly letters; here was one, in theme and style, 
accredited to the House of Lords. The Memoirs and 
Correspondence of Yiscount Castlereagh, Second Marquis of 
Londonderry, were published in 1848; and Disraeli 
must have turned with something more than curios- 
ity to p. 132 of the first volume, where, between letters 
from Aberdeen and Sir James Graham, and closely 
following another from Peel, his own was printed — 
the first of the long series that must finally appear in 
the great political human documents of the nineteenth 
century. It was addressed to Castlereagh's brother 
and biographer, he having written a "Letter to Lord 

285 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

Brougham" (a flimsy critic of Castlereagh), and hav- 
ing sent a copy of it to Disraeli: 

''July Mth, 1839. 

"My dear Lord: I have just read your letter 
to Lord Brougham, and I can not deny myself the 
sincere pleasure of congratulating you on the pub- 
lication of what is not only a very spirited yet digni- 
fied vindication of your eminent relative's memory, 
but is an extremely interesting and valuable contri- 
bution to our political and historical literature. The 
style is worthy of the theme — fluent, yet sustained — 
and the sarcasm polished and most felicitous. 

"It will make a considerable^sensation; and, if only 
for the original documents which it contains, will 
often be referred to. I assure you, my dear lord, I 
can not easily express with what entire satisfaction 
I have perused this well-timed appeal to that public 
opinion which has been too long abused on the char- 
acter and career of a great statesman. 

"I am, my dear lord, ever your obliged and faithful 

"B. Disraeli." 

Not without bearing on Disraeli's own history are 
one or two passages to be found in close conjunction 
to his letters in the Memoirs of this statesman, vilified 
in life, appreciated after death. "He was a man," 
writes one, "of fixed principles and ideas; and hence 
the hatred with which he was regarded and the abuse 
which the rabble heaped upon him. Had he yielded, 
had he withdrawn, he might have escaped the malig- 
nant calumnies incessantly poured forth against him; 
but his character was too noble for concession when 
he felt that his course was right, and in the end his 
ideas triumphed." "You well know," writes another, 

286 



"A TRAGEDY! AND ONE FOR YOU" 

and this was Sir Robert Peel, "that no vindication of 
your brother's memory was necessary for my satis- 
faction — that my admiration for his character is too 
firmly rooted to be shaken by criticisms of phrases and 
cavils at particular acts selected from a long political ca- 
reer:' Sir Robert's refusal to judge by isolated epi- 
sodes of Castlereagh's completed career may suggest 
perhaps the verdict which, had he lived longer, he had 
haply passed on Lord Beaconsfield's own. 

To Lady Lyndhurst. 

[End of 1839.] 

"My dear Lady: Lo! another Tragedy! and one 
for you. Pray do not forget that you and Miss Copley 
A Tragedy ! ^^^^ kindly promised to dine with us on 
and one for Tuesday. 

you." "We have engaged the Tankervilles, 

Mr. Hope, etc., to have the honor of meeting the High 
Steward on Thursday, and tell Miss Copley I will sum- 
mon some beaux worthy of her. 

"Your Ladyship's faithful servant, 

"Dis." 

This was the first of the Disraelis' "little dinners" 
after their marriage. But it was not the invitation 
that was a tragedy for his correspondent, as might be 
heartily supposed. With the letter went a volume, 
The Dane, which its author, Mrs. Gore, had asked him 
to give to Lord Lyndhurst (then the newly elected 
High Sheriff of Cambridge University). "Lo, another 
Tragedy! and one for you!" Mrs. Gore's tragedy rather 
closely followed Alarcos, which Colburn had been ad- 
vertising as "Mr. Disraeli's Tragedy." The "one for 

287 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

you" is one of the rare touches of a witty discrimina- 
tion to be found in the hurried notes he wrote. Of 
Disraeli's friendship with Lord Lyndhurst and his 
acquaintance with Mr. and Mrs. Gore, something is 
elsewhere said. But a word may be added of Lady 
Lyndhurst, who outlived all the men and other women 
now named and in the twentieth century moved in 
flesh and blood among the ghosts who inhabited her 
London drawing-room from more than six decades 
earlier. She was married to the Lord Chancellor in 
the year of Queen Victoria's accession. The event 
was a nine-days' wonder; for Lord Lyndhurst was the 
best dressed man of his day (and D'Orsay's); and, be- 
sides his personal popularity, had a political im- 
portance far greater than any Lord Chancellor has 
since possessed. His bride's maiden name was 
Georgiana Goldsmith. Disraeli was a shrewd ob- 
server of woman, and the impression made upon him 
by Lady Lyndhurst, whom he first met at a party at 
Lady Salisbury's, was entirely favorable. "Without 
being absolutely pretty," he said, "her appearance is 
highly interesting. She is very little, but elegant and 
delicate. She was most becomingly dressed in a 
white turban" — and what else he does not specify. 
Lady Lyndhurst became a most successful entertain- 
er, and all the familiar forebodings about the failure 
of marriages made between an old man and a young 
woman were, in her case, utterly falsified. She kept 
her husband's memory sacred, wearing her widow's 
weeds for nearly forty years. Lady Lyndhurst it was 
who, at one of her own evening parties, introduced 

288 • 



DISRAELI, DEBTOR 

Dizzy to the Duke of Wellington, a memorable en- 
counter: "He accorded me a most gracious and 
friendly reception." At Lady Lyndhurst's table, too, 
Disraeli met Daniel Webster. American statesmen 
were then rarer visitors to this country than they now 
are. "He seemed to me a complete Brother Jonathan 
— a remarkable twang, as ^i/rannical, and all that; he 
also goes to the levee." Dizzy, nevertheless, notes the 
American orator's "fine brow and beetled, deep-set 
eyes"; though he unluckily left it to Sydney Smith to 
declare that no man could be so wise as Daniel 
Webster looked. 

A man of genius (and of debts) who was presented 
to Disraeli in Whitehall, and on whose arm the Chief 
Disraeli, leaned for some steps, exclaimed, "If my 

Debtor. creditors could only see me now!" Dis- 

raeli said: "They never do — you meet them only 
when you are carrying a parcel, or are caught in a 
«hower with no umbrella — an apparatus, by the way, 
that I refuse to support." 

Disraeli, who had experienced most things, had 
suffered in earlier life the cares of pecuniary pressure. 
The future Chancellor of the Exchequer, with his 
budget of millions, had himself to think twice before 
he left his door lest judgments should be served upon 
him. At his Maidstone election the town had been 
placarded with documents of the sort; and Disraeli, 
to tide over his difficulties, was obliged to have re- 
course to an issue of what may be called Disraeli 
Bonds. Gradually, as the years went and fortune 
20 289 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

moderately came, he paid off all the liabilities in- 
curred by the electoral struggles of his youth. 

Mrs. Blackwood, the first Earl of Dufferin's 
mother, asked Disraeli the Younger to bring his father 
to see her: which he delayed doing in consequence of 
some pecuniary difficulties that (according to Lord 
Dufferin) momentarily estranged him from his father 
— the "too indulgent sire" of the Home Letters. When 
the old and young Disraeli did appear, Benjamin said 
he had been reconciled to his father (this is Lord 
Dufferin's story), the treaty being that he should 
bring his father to Mrs. Blackwood, and that his 
father should pay his debts. 

Disraeli's opinion of Mrs. Blackwood on first meet- 
her at her sister Mrs. Norton's was: 

"Mrs. Blackwood, also very handsome and very 
Sheridanic: she told me she was nothing. ^You see^ 
Georgy's the beauty' (Lady St. Maur), 'and Carry's the 
wit' (Mrs. Norton), 'and I ought to be the good one,, 
but then I am not.' I must say I liked her exceed- 
ingly; besides, she knows all my works by heart, and 
spouts whole pages of Y. G. [Vivian Grey] and G. F. 
[Gontarini Fleming] and the Y. D. [Toung Duke]. In 
the evening came the beauty. Lady St. Maur, and 
anything so splendid I never gazed upon. Even the 
handsomest family in the world, which I think the 
Sheridans are, all looked dull. Clusters of the dark- 
est hair, the most brilliant complexion, a contour of 
face perfectly ideal. In the evening Mrs. Norton sang 
and acted, and did everything that was delightful." 

In contrast with Disraeli's sweet and witty impres- 

290 



UNPARLIAMENTARY BILLS 

tion of this mother and these aunts, Lord Dufferin, 
their son and nephew, late in life, put on paper, dully, 
only one reminiscence of the dead Minister by whom, 
politics apart, he had been promoted and petted, 
surely a little for the sake of those "ladies of yester- 
year." Strange that his solitary reminiscence should 
be a squalid one; it related to Disraeli's pecuniary 
embarrassments and to family complications that he 
(and he alone) says resulted therefrom. Disraeli the 
Younger was asked to bring Disraeli the Elder to one 
of these ladies; and did so only after a delay due to an 
estrangement between father and son caused by the 
son's debts. Alas! when Lord Dufferin so wrote, the 
Nemesis that guards the memories of the great was 
all too near. 

To a Financial Agent. 

"Carlton Club, 
"March 16th, 1843. 

"My dear Sir: The hopeless illness of Mrs. Dis- 
raeli's mother has prevented me from being a 
Unparliamen- continuous week in London since my 
tary Bills. return to England; but I have not neg- 
lected your affairs. 

"I was not aware that you held any presentable 
bills, and was under the misapprehension that your 
documents were promissory notes. 

"It was my wish that Mr. Lovell should have com- 
municated with you before they became due, but I 
never could succeed in seeing him. I called on him 
three times yesterday, and succeeded in seeing him 
very late. He promised, if possible, to communicate 
with you that evening. As I am now going out of 
town, I shall not be able to see him again, but I can 

291 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

not doubt that, after what occurred yesterday, he has 
by this time written to you, and I trust satisfactorily. 

"Yours sincerely, 

"D." 

Disraeli, framer of bills in Parliament these five 
years, was still, as this letter shows, bothered with 
bills of another order. On his way to the Treasury 
he was personally impecunious; and before he con- 
trolled the finances of the nation, had a rather severe 
apprenticeship in the management of his own. Al- 
ready at this date he had been for two and a half 
years the husband of Mrs. Wyndham Lewis, whose 
wealth has often been exaggerated to give color to 
the romantic story of her having discharged all his 
debts (mostly incurred at election times) upon the 
occasion of their marriage. The scene at which the 
list of his liabilities was presented to her has been 
pictured: even the talk has been liberally supplied: 
"She always knew that Benjamin's mess was a large 
one." 

The widow of Mr. Wyndham Lewis did indeed suc- 
ceed to the life interest in an income of £4,000 a year 
and the house at Grosvenor Gate, though with no 
such "curious bequest" of coals and candles as has 
been generally reported; but that income could not 
allow any great margin for the payment of these old 
accumulations of debt. "Mrs. Disraeli's mother," Mrs. 
Yate, so named by her marriage, after the death of 
Lieutenant Evans, with Dr. Yate, was herself a wom- 
an of fortune; and Mrs. Disraeli, under whose care 
she had for some time been living, and who was away 

292 




Photograph by the London Stereoscopic Company. 
BENJAMIN DISRAELI. 
From a photograph taken in the 'sixties. 



UNPARLIAMENTARY BILLS 

from Grosvenor Gate with her when Disraeli wrote 
this letter, was her mother's sole heir. We must, 
however, have done with the common story that Mrs. 
Disraeli as heir at law of her uncle, Sir James Viney, 
became possessed of Taynton Manor. Sir James had 
mortgaged the property to Mr. Wyndham Lewis; and, 
a few months later than the date of which we are 
writing, Mrs. Disraeli, as one of her first husband's 
executors, foreclosed; the Manor was sold, and the 
proceeds were held under the trusts created by the 
Wyndham Lewis will. The money was Mrs. Disraeli's 
only for life. "In connection with this sale," says Mr. 
J. Henry Harris, "a tradition survives in Gloucester 
that Mr. Disraeli attended the Auction Mart in the 
City of London, and that the purchaser (Mr. Laslett, 
M.P.) paid the money subsequently in cash to a Mr. 
Lovegrove (sometime Mrs. Disraeli's agent), who was 
requested by Mr. Disraeli to take charge of it for the 
night." ^ This circumstantial narrative is a myth. 
Mr. Disraeli was not present either at the sale or 
completion of the purchase, and there exists a note in 
Mr. Laslett's handwriting, indorsed by Mr. Love- 
grove, showing how and to whom the purchase-money 
was paid; the gold and silver coins amounted to only 
£9 lis. Sd. ; there was £600 in notes, and the balance 
consisted of various checks. 

' Mr. James Sykes, for instance, quotes (in 1902) Mr. Henry J. Taylor of 
Gloucester as his authority for the statement that "she gave the estate to Mr. 
Disraeli, and that he sold it by auction" ; also that "she had two houses in 
College Green which now belong to Lord Beaconsfield's executors. " Local 
tradition, gravely quoted by historians, perpetually lowers — or elevates — 
legend to biography. 

293 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

To Sir Robert Peel. 

"GROSVBNOR GrATB, 

"September 5th, 1841. 

"Dear Sir Robert: I have shrunk from obtrud- 
ing myself upon you at this moment, and should have 
The Peel- Continued to do so if there were any 
Disraeli one on whom I could rely to express my 

Antagonism, feelings. 

"I am not going to trouble you with claims similar 
to those with which you must be wearied. I will not 
say that I have fought since 1834 four contests for your 
party, that I have expended great sums, have exerted 
my intelligence* to the utmost for the propagation of 
your policy, and have that position in life which can 
command a costly seat. 

"But there is one peculiarity in my case on which 
I can not be silent. I have had to struggle against a 
storm of political hate and malice, which few men 
ever experienced, from the moment, at the instigation 
of a member of your Cabinet, I enrolled myself under 
your banner, and I have only been sustained under 
these trials by the conviction that the day would come 
when the foremost man of this country would pub- 
licly testify that he had some respect for my ability 
and my character. 

"I confess, to be unrecognized at this moment by 
you appears to me to be overwhelming, and I appeal 
to your own heart — to that justice and that magna- 
nimity which I feel are your characteristics — to save 
me from an intolerable humiliation. 

"Believe me, dear Sir Robert, your faithful servant, 

"B. Disraeli." 

This salient letter fitly heads a section dealing 
with the relations between Disraeli and Peel. For 

294 



THE PEEL-DISRAELI ANTAGONISM 

this letter, and the reply made to it, are frequently 
cited as bearing on their front the whole of the offend- 
ing of Sir Robert in the eyes of the younger man. 
Because Peel did not "recognize" Disraeli, Disraeli 
did not go round with Peel on the Corn Laws, but 
fostered a Protectionist party, put up Lord George 
as a dummy leader, and, by some process of necro- 
mancy, arose on the ashes of Peel as the Phenix of 
the Tory party. It is the Cabinet Trick of politics; it 
takes no count of national movements; the country 
lies a purblind puppet in the magician's hands. 

Disraeli's application did not come alone. Prob- 
ably it was the very same post that took to Whitehall 
the following letter from the lady, who, three years 
before, had heard from her husband that Peel had 
heartily congratulated him on his marriage. 

Mrs. Disraeli to Sir Robert Peel. 

(Confidential. ) ' 'Grosvbnor Gate, 

"Saturday Night. 

"Dear Sir Robert Peel: I beg you not to be 
angry with me for my intrusion, but I am over- 
whelmed with anxiety. My husband's political career 
is forever crushed, if you do not appreciate him, 

"Mr. Disraeli's exertions are not unknown to you, 
but there is much he has done that you can not be 
aware of, though they have had no other aim but to 
do you honor, no wish for recompense but your ap- 
probation. 

"He has gone further than most to make your op- 
ponents his personal enemies. He has stood four 
most expensive elections since 1834, and gained seats 

295 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

from Whigs in two, and I pledge myself as far as one 
seat, that it shall always be at your command. 

"Literature he has abandoned for polities. Do not 
destroy all his hopes, and make him feel his life has 
been a mistake. 

"May I venture to name my own humble but en- 
thusiastic exertion in times gone by, for the party, or 
rather for your own splendid self? They will tell you 
at Maidstone, that more than £40,000 was spent 
through my influence only. 

"Be pleased not to answer this, as I do not wish 
any human being to know I have written to you this 
humble petition. 

"I am now, as ever, dear Sir Robert, your most 
faithful servant, 

"Mary Anne Disraeli." 

Mr. Charles Stuart Parker, most judicious of ed- 
itors, sandwiches between the two letters the two 
lines: "[Disraeli's] appeal was seconded, probably 
without his knowledge, by the devoted partner of his 
aspirations." If the phrase "devoted partner of his 
aspirations" has a suggestion of burlesque in it, that 
suggestion does not show Mr. Parker at his happiest; 
nor does the "probably" discover him in one of the 
confident moments to which he is not elsewhere a 
stranger. 

Mrs. Disraeli's word that she wrote at her own 
volition is not difficult of acceptance. Had Disraeli 
known of his wife's letter, he need not, and surely 
would not, have written his own. Such abstention 
would pass for a Machiavellian masterstroke; and in 
not sheltering himself behind this petticoat, he must 

296 



THE PEEL-DISRAELI ANTAGONISM 

be held to be deficient in cunning by those who make 
cunning his characteristic. The situation has its 
counterparts in most domestic histories. This was a 
woman of impulse, and her husband's interests were 
acutely hers to the end of a long married life, which 
had now run but for two years. "With his usual pru- 
dence Sir Robert Peel first disclaimed any responsi- 
bility for the instigation of Mr. Disraeli [in 1834], by 
a member of the Cabinet unnamed, to join the party.'^ 
Sir Robert's "usual prudence"! If that were an exhi- 
bition of it, one wonders how he ever carried on the 
Queen's Government. If that passage of Disraeli's 
letter had borne such an interpretation as Sir Robert 
gave it, delicacy would have passed it lightly over 
between men of affairs, often meeting in public and 
private; but the forcing of that sentiment into words 
which scarcely bear it seems to indicate that Sir 
Robert's natural suspiciousness betrayed him into 
putting upon Disraeli a superfluous indignity. 

Sir Robert Peel to Disraeli. 

"Whitehall, 
' 'September 7th, 1841. 

"My dear Sir: I must in the first place observe 
that no member of the Cabinet which I have formed 
ever received from me the slightest authority to make 
to you the communication to which you refer. 

"Had I been consulted by that person, I should 
have at once declined to authorize a communication 
which would have been altogether at variance with 
the principle on which I have uniformly acted in re- 
spect to political engagements, and by adhering to 
which I have left myself at entire liberty to reconcile 

297 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

— as far as my limited means allow — justice to indi- 
vidual claims with the efficient conduct of the public 
service. 

"I know not who is the member of the Cabinet to 
whom you allude, and can not but think he acted very 
imprudently. But quite independently of this con- 
sideration, I should have been very happy had it been 
in my power to avail myself of your offer of service; 
and your letter is one of the many I receive which too 
forcibly impress upon me how painful and invidious is 
the duty which I have been compelled to undertake. 
I am only supported in it by the consciousness that 
my desire has been to do justice. 

"I trust also that when candidates for Parlia- 
mentary office calmly reflect on my position, and the 
appointments I have made — when they review the 
names of those previously connected with me in pub- 
lic life, whom I have been absolutely compelled to 
exclude, the claims founded on acceptance in 1834 
with the almost hopeless prospects of that day, the 
claims, too, founded on new party combinations — I 
trust they will then understand how perfectly insuffi- 
cient are the means at my disposal to meet the wishes 
that are conveyed to me by men whose co-operation I 
should be proud to have, and whose qualifications and 
pretensions for office I do not contest." 

Disraeli to Sir Robert Peel. 

"GrOSVENOR GrATB, 

"September 8th, 1841. 

"Dear Sir Robert: Justice requires that I should 
state that you have entirely misconceived my mean- 
ing, in supposing that I intended even to intimate that 
a promise of official promotion had ever been made 
to me, at any time, by any member of your Cabinet, 

"I have ever been aware that it was not in the 

298 



THE PEEL-DISRAELI ANTAGONISM 

power of any member of your Cabinet to fulfil such 
engagements, had he made them: permit me to add 
that it is utterly alien to my nature to bargain and 
stipulate on such subjects. Parliamentary office 
should be the recognition of party service and Parlia- 
mentary ability, and as such only was it to me an 
object of ambition. 

"It appears to me that you have mistaken an al- 
lusion to my confidence in your sympathy, for a 
reference to a pledge received from a third person. 
If such a pledge had been given me by yourself, and 
not redeemed, I should have taken refuge in silence. 
Not to be appreciated may be a mortification: to be 
balked of a promised reward is only a vulgar acci- 
dent of life, to be borne without a murmur. 

"Your faithful servant, 

"B. Disraeli." 



Nobody will deny the dignity of Disraeli's second 
letter. Was the first undignified? In itself, an ap- 
plication for service under Government can not be 
earmarked from other applications for service, ad- 
dressed to corporations or to newspapers or to 
employers of any kind. Disraeli applied the general 
judgment on a transaction of the sort; he did what 
others had done before him. If the inherent judgment 
did not err, was taste lacking? Taste must be tested 
by custom; and the reader of the whole very interest- 
ing and creditable Peel correspondence will not be 
left in doubt as to the very common habit of all sorts 
and conditions of men in making known their wants, 
were these viceroyalties or baronetcies. Indeed, if 
the kind of patriotic pride with which people talk of 

299 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

having "served their country" be not a fiction, the ap- 
plication is in itself an act of a patriot. Methods may 
differ. A Minister may be so closely in touch with a 
man that a look or a syllable suflflces: a letter would 
be a superfluity. In other cases a third party may say 
the word or write the note. There are situations in 
which a wink or a pressure of the hand may suflace. 
Some of these, perhaps because they have no need to 
stand cap in hand, shake the head at those less luckily 
placed. One such, the son and the nephew of two of 
Peel's Cabinet colleagues, and himself a Cabinet Min- 
ister in successive Liberal administrations, speaking 
of this application of Disraeli's, said to me in a paren- 
thesis, "Which I suppose nobody who respected him- 
self would make." Well, the Marquis of Ripon, who 
does respect himself and whom everybody respects^ 
had as little need to ask as had his father or his 
uncle. Lord Goderich or Lord de Grey.^ But had they 
been, instead of great personages, men who, without 
being greedy, had yet to live by what they earned^ 
they might well have run after the Minister instead 
of leaving the Minister to run after them. Bad form 

' Extract from a letter addressed by Lord Stanley to Sir Kobert Peel when 
a Conservative Government was in formation in 1839 : "Ripon has this mo- 
ment been with me, anxious to know what was going on. I said I knew it was 
your intention to offer him a seat in the Cabinet, but of offices I knew noth- 
ing. He said he was quite satisfied, that he should not have liked to be 
passed over, but that you would not find him exigent. I thought it best to- 
tell you this at once." On the same occasion communications passed be- 
tween Sir Robert and Lady de Grey, who wrote to him, with a feminine 
camaraderie that would have delighted Disraeli, immediately on the defeat 
of the Whigs over the Jamaica Bill : "My dear Peel, — The vote of last night 
may probably call you into power. Pray forgive your most truly attached 
friend if she gives you a word of advice. The Queen has always expressed 

300 



THE PEEL-DISRAELI ANTAGONISM 

in these matters is surely often the form of those 
whom we dislike — of the alien. 

We may leave this first scene in this Peel drama, 
which already begins to turn into tragedy, by saying 
that if Disraeli chose his methods badly. Peel, for his 
part, did not know his man; and there we have the 
advantage over Peel — we have seen proof of Disraeli's 
powers; and if we call the Minister stupid, we do so 
with the wisdom of those who are wise after the event. 
Discernment was not the forte of "the great medioc- 
rity": his was a nature that owed everything to 
tuition; to intuition nothing at all. He liked the ordi- 
nary, and Disraeli was never that; not in his mind, not 
in his manner, not in his name, not even in his dress. 
Dress is still a vast item in the Englishman's table of 
appreciation; dress or the want of it. Bolingbroke, the 
model of Disraeli in so many intellectual attainments 
and political methods, is still known to a large public 
mostly as the man who ran naked in the Park. 

But the relations between Peel and Disraeli before 
this exchange of letters are worth a note. It has been 
charged against the Minister, on one hand, that he 
had nothing but haughty disdain for Disraeli, man, 
writer, and publicist; against Disraeli, on the other, 
that in writing to Peel he was guilty of an intrusion 

herself much impressed with Lord Melbourne's open manner and his truth. 
The latter quality you possess, the former not. Now, dear Peel, the first 
impression on so young a girl's mind is of immense consequence. I wish you 
success from my friendship for you, from my high esteem and admiration of 
your noble character, and from the belief that you alone can avert the evils 
which threaten the country. Your very affectionate H. de Gret." The 
lady had from her "dear Peel" a reply in which he offered high office to her 
husband. 

301 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

that merged into insolence. Both charges are unjust; 
and he who refutes the one has the gratification of 
automatically refuting the other, at least partially; 
righting both Disraeli and Peel with one stroke of the 
pen. The simple truth is that Peel, within his limita- 
tions, formed a fair estimate of Disraeli's abilities and 
gave him a welcome rather unusually cordial for a 
man who, if manners made that man, could not but 
be accounted cold to the point of zero. 

In 1836, five years before the Correspondence, Dis- 
raeli sent a copy of his Vindication of the English Con- 
stitution to Peel, by whom he had been greeted "most 
flatteringly" six months earlier at a dinner given by 
Lord Chandos to a party of men, all senators except 
Disraeli. "Late and grudgingly," he says, he sent the 
book "with a cold dry note, convinced that he would 
never notice or even confess to having heard of it^ 
being, as you well know, by reputation the most jeal- 
ous, rigid, and haughty of men." That letter does not 
appear in the Peel Correspondence: probably it was 
not kept; for the man who addressed the Minister was 
not yet even a member of Parliament. If the letter 
was cold, the book was all aglow; and Sir Robert 
could not look down its taking contents-table without 
reading "Vindication of the Recent Policy of Sir 
Robert Peel and his Cabinet." In a couple of pages 
the young writer defends the Tory Government for 
passing Democratic measures they had formerly op- 
posed. 

The point is one of cogent bearing upon the polit- 
ical position of Disraeli. From 1831 to 1834 he had 

302 



THE PEEL-DISRAELI ANTAGONISM 

been politically unlabeled. He had been anti-Whig^ 
without being pro-Tory. He recognized and defended 
in the opportunism of Sir Robert an approach to his 
own early attitude of inveterate dislike for the Whigs^ 
"with," as he here says again, "their mouths full of 
the People, Reform, and Liberty, and their portfolios 
bursting with oligarchical coups d'etat. If," he con- 
tinues, "I appeal to the measures brought forward by 
Sir Robert Peel as evidence that the Tories are not 
opposed to measures of political amelioration, I shall 
perhaps be met with that famous dilemma of insin- 
cerity or apostasy which was urged during the last 
general election on the Whig hustings with an air of 
irrefutable triumph, which, had it been better ground- 
ed, had been less amusing. . . . This great deed, 
therefore, instead of being an act of insincerity or 
apostasy, was conceived in good faith and in perfect 
harmony with the previous policy of the party; it was 
at the same time indispensable, and urged alike by 
the national voice and the national interests, and his- 
tory will record it as the conduct of patriotic wisdom. 
. . . The clause of Lord Chandos, your lordship's 
(Lord Lyndhurst's) triumphant defense of the freemen 
of England, and the last registration, are three great 
Democratic movements and quite in keeping with the 
original and genuine character of Toryism." The 
passage illustrates Disraeli's future as well as his 
past; his claim for Peel covers the policy of his own 
Household Suffrage Act of later years. 

Be it borne in mind that to Lord Lyndhurst was 
addressed the letter in which Disraeli defended at 

303 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

once the English Constitution and the constitutional 
minister. Disraeli had first met Peel's Lord Chancel- 
lor a year earlier. At once the two men liked each 
other; and it was Lyndhurst who in 1834 went to Grev- 
ille, and otherwise busied himself, to get a seat into 
which Disraeli could settle, at last a wearer of the 
badge. If the liking between the two men was mutual, 
so was the influence: from Lyndhurst Disraeli re- 
ceived Peel's shilling, but Lyndhurst was able to hear 
and to report upon the policy for which this recruit 
was ready to fight. In the result a newspaper notice 
of the time speaks of both Lyndhurst and Peel as 
having "adopted Mr. Disraeli's view of the Constitu- 
tion." Under these conditions did Sir Robert receive 
the printed "Letter to Lyndhurst" and the too sensi- 
tively distant manuscript letter of Disraeli's; and on 
this occasion, at any rate, the response he made ex- 
ceeded the expectations of his correspondent. This is 
what he wrote: 

"I beg to return you my best thanks for that copy 
of your work . . . for which I am indebted for 
your kind attention and consideration. It is not the 
only one in my possession, for, attracted as well by 
your name as by some extracts in the public papers, 
which struck me as very forcibly written, I had taken 
the first opportunity of procuring a copy, and was 
gratified and surprised to find that a familiar and ap- 
parently exhausted topic could be treated with so 
much original force of argument and novelty of illus- 
tration. I thank you both for the work itself and the 
satisfaction which the reading of it has afforded me." 

Lyndhurst gave Disraeli the extra delight of say- 

304 



THE PEEL-DISRAELI ANTAGONISM 

ing that this expression was "much, considering the 
writer." 

In the July of 1837 Disraeli was returned to the 
House of Commons as Tory member for Maidstone, 
and in November took his seat on the second bench 
behind Peel, encouraged, no doubt, to that propinquity 
by Peel's welcome to him the day before, at the 
Oarlton. 

"He welcomed me very warmly," Disraeli wrote, 
^'and all noticed his cordial demeanor. He asked me 
to join a small dinner at the Carlton on Thursday — 
^a House of Commons dinner purely,' he said; 'by that 
time we shall know something of the temper of the 
House.' " 

There must have been something very exciting in 
that "we" to the neophyte. His admiration for Peel's 
speech on the Address finds expression, not in any set 
form, but in a private letter — "one of the finest 
speeches I ever heard, most powerful and even bril- 
liant." A fortnight later we have Peel's opinion on 
Disraeli's first speech, which he had turned round to 
cheer during its delivery: "I say anything but failure: 
he must make his way." A few days later he dined 
with Peel at Peel's first sessional party. Again, a few 
days later, when he made his second speech, "Peel 
cheered loudly" at one point, and indeed, says Dis- 
raeli, "throughout my remarks he backed me" — meta- 
phorically and literally too. 

Fifteen months later there was another dinner at 
Peel's, where Disraeli was more than welcome. 

"I came late, having mistaken the hour," he writes 
21 305 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

to Bradenham, where all his triumphs had a second 
life. "I found some twenty-five gentlemen grubbing 
in solemn silence. I threw a shot over the table and 
set them going, and in time they became even noisy. 
Peel, I think, was quite pleased that I broke the awful 
stillness, as he talked to me a good deal, though we 
were far removed." 

Even that fourth decade of the century, which was 
to witness the breach, began in amity. In July, 1840, 
"Peel most gallantly came to the rescue of his 'honor- 
able friend the member for Maidstone,' and gave me 
immense kudos." 

The letter writen to Sir Robert a year later invited 
him, in effect, to bear official testimony to the ability 
and the character that he had seemed, in private and in 
Parliament, to appreciate. The wording of the reply 
which "Dear Sir Robert" sent to "My dear Sir" was 
an undoubted rebuff; the Minister assumed the de- 
fensive in a manner most provocative, Disraeli, to his 
astonishment, found himself treated as a schemer 
by the man who had "backed" him, and dined him, and 
called him his "friend." A regretful refusal of office 
on the ground that other claims were paramount 
would have carried disappointment, no doubt; but 
this was to inflict most superfluous pain. Something, 
unknown to Disraeli, must have changed Peel's atti- 
tude toward him, and this at the last moment; for, 
on the very eve of the Dissolution, in the June of 1841, 
Disraeli sent to Sir Robert a memorandum dealing 
with Lord John Russell's reflections on his Parlia- 
mentary defeat. 

306 




Fliuloyrapii by IT', d' D. Downey, London. 

LORD BEACONSFIELD. 
From a photograph taken in the 'seventies. 



THE PEEL-DISRAELI ANTAGONISM 

Whence came that change? Possibly there is a 
hint of it in the formation of the Young England party 
in 1841. It was of the nature of a fad in the eyes of 
the elders. Thomas Love Peacock satirized it in 
Crotchet Castle. Disraeli, in Sybil, applies by the 
mouth of the conventional Tory the term "crotchety" 
to Egremont's (his own) speech in defense of the 
Chartists; and elsewhere we have the dictum: "Well, 
that will not do for Peel. He does not like crotchety 
men." The clue seems worth a mention, but it does 
not carry us far, and we feel that the mystery of the 
subsequent Disraeli Denial is not the only mystery to 
pass unsolved into history with the Peel-Disraeli cor- 
respondence of 1841. 

Many things must have added fuel to the fires of 
Disraeli's just resentment against the tone of Sir 
Robert's letter. To begin with, he was no doubt 
pressed for money, in spite of a prosperous marriage 
and of "that position in life" to which allusion had 
been made. An autograph letter put at my disposal, 
and dated six months later than the letter to Peel, 
betrays a pecuniary pressure which his wife's income 
(not yet increased by her inheritance from her mother) 
had been unable in two years to remove. It is printed 
on another page, but these allusions to money expend- 
ed on elections should be read in the light of it; Dis- 
raeli, in his embarrassment, thought his expenditure 
on the party was one which, under the circumstances, 
the party might feel inclined to recoup. There was 
talk, private and public, about the expectation of 
office. "When the Ministry of 1841 was forming, both 

307 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

Disraeli and his wife gave out that they were to have 
the Secretaryship of the Admiralty," is the nasty (and, 
with PeeFs letter before us, we may say the untruth- 
ful) version of the Grosvenor Gate expectations given 
in one of "the delectable" Abraham Hayward's let- 
ters. In Parliament, too, Lord Palmerston had his 
jaunty jibe, Disraeli made a proposal to unite the 
consular and diplomatic services (he had fared well 
at the hands of consuls during his early travels, and 
with his usual sense of public logic sought, when the 
chance came, to give legislative effect to the high 
opinion he had formed of them), and in the course of 
debate Lord Palmerston, opposing, said: "The honor- 
able gentleman had affirmed the general principle 
that political adherents ought to be rewarded by ap- 
pointments, and he regretted to observe an exception 
to that rule in the person of the honorable member 
himself." Disraeli felt the prick, no doubt; he gave 
in return a rapier thrust. He offered his acknowledg- 
ments for the noble Viscount's aspirations for an op- 
ponent's political promotion: 

"The noble Viscount is a consummate master of 
the subject; and if he will only impart to me the secret 
by which he has himself contrived to retain office dur- 
ing seven successive Administrations, the present de- 
bate will certainly not be without a result." 

Disraeli's proposal was, Mr. O'Connor jubilantly 
says, "treated with as scant courtesy by Peel as by 
Palmerston." That this was Disraeli's own impres- 
sion we shall shortly see. Mr. O'Connor and Disraeli 
are for once united, and against the Minister. The 

308 



THE PEEL-DISRAELI ANTAGONISM 

apparently sudden prejudice against Disraeli in Sir 
Robert's mind had evidently come to stay. Mr. O'Con- 
nor testifies, on the other hand, to Disraeli's unruffled 
loyalty to Peel. "He continued to laud Sir Robert 
with unabated zeal," he says of the 1842 session. And 
again: "During the greater part of the session of 1843 
Mr. Disraeli continued to be a zealous supporter of 
Sir Robert Peel." In the following year Coningshy was 
published. It is from Sir Robert Peel's own copy of 
that work, with the page turned down at the place, 
that I transcribe the passage in which Disraeli re- 
cords the accession of Wellington and Peel to high 
office in 1819: 

"There was an individual who had not long entered 
public life, but who had already filled considerable, 
though still subordinate, offices. Having acquired a 
certain experience of the duties of administration and 
distinction for his mode of fulfilling them, he had 
withdrawn from his public charge; perhaps because 
he found it a barrier to the attainment of that Parlia- 
mentary reputation for which he had already shown 
both a desire and a capacity; perhaps, because being 
young and independent, he was not over anxious irre- 
mediably to identify his career with a school of pol- 
itics of the infallibility of which his experience might 
have already made him a little skeptical. But he pos- 
sessed the talents that were absolutely wanted, and 
the terms were at his own dictation. A very dis- 
tinguished mediocrity was thrust out, and Mr. Peel 
became Secretary of State. From this moment dates 
that intimate connection between the Duke of Well- 

309 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

ington and the present First Minister. It was the 
sympathetic result of superior minds placed among 
inferior intelligences. From this moment, too, the 
domestic government of the country assumed a new 
character, and one universally admitted to have been 
distinguished by a spirit of enlightened progress and 
comprehensive amelioration." 

There was no gall mixed with the ink of Disraeli 
in this sketch of the character and consequences of 
Peel's admission to Cabinet rank. 

Nothing can be idler, then, than a common asser- 
tion that Disraeli, "spurned" by Peel in 1841, at once, 
and with no shame, went into opposition. The Ee- 
peal of the Corn Laws was a great event, and one 
which can not be left out of the reckoning. It was 
Peel who withdrew from the Protectionist members; 
not they from Peel. Nor were there wanting other 
signs of the great rent imminent in the temple of Tory- 
ism. Disraeli saw ahead; and his foreseeing brought 
upon him the boycott of the Minister when next the 
Minister issued a summons to his followers. 

Disraeli to Peel. 

"GROSVENOR GrATB, 

"February Uh, 1844. 

"Dear Sir Robert: I was quite unaware until 
Friday night, when I was generally apprised of it, 
that the circumstance of my not having received the 
usual circular from yourself to attend Parliament was 
intentional. 

"The procedure, of course, admits of only one in- 
ference. 

310 



THE PEEL-DISRAELI ANTAGONISM 

"As a mere fact, the circumstance must be unim- 
portant both to you and to myself. For you, in the 
present state of parties, which will probably last our 
generation, a solitary vote must be a matter of in- 
difference; and for me, our relations, never much cul- 
tivated, had for some time merged in the mere not 
displeasing consciousness of a political connection 
with an individual eminent for his abilities, his vir- 
tues, and his station. 

"As a matter of feeling, however, I think it right 
that a public tie, formed in the hour of political ad- 
versity, which has endured many years, and which has 
been sustained on my side by some exertions, should 
not terminate without this clear understanding of the 
circumstances under which it has closed. 

"I am informed that I am to seek the reason of 
its disruption in my Parliamentary conduct during 
the last session. On looking over the books, I per- 
ceive that there were four occasions on which I ven- 
tured to take a principal part in debate. 

"On the first I vindicated your commercial policy, 
on grounds then novel in discussion, but which I be- 
lieved conducive to your interest and your honor, and 
the justness and accuracy of which, though never 
noticed by yourself, or any of your colleagues, were 
on a subsequent occasion referred to and formally 
acknowledged by the leader of the Opposition. 

"In the second instance I spoke on a treaty of a 
difficult and delicate nature, against which the Oppo- 
sition urged no insignificant charges, and to assist 
you to defend which I was aware you would not be 
likely to find efficacious support on your own side. I 
have reason to believe that my efforts on this occasion 
were not wholly uninfluential on opinion, although 
certainly I never learned this from any member of her 
Majesty's Government. 

311 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

"At the very end of the session there were two 
other occasions on which I spoke, and against isolated 
points of the existing policy; I mean with respect to 
Ireland and the Turkish Empire. Although an indis- 
creet individual, apparently premonished, did in the 
last instance conceive a charge against me of treating 
the Government with 'systematic contumely,' he was 
utterly unable to substantiate, scarcely equal to state, 
the imputation, and the full miscarriage was gener- 
ally admitted. I can recall no expression in those re- 
marks more critical than others which have been 
made on other subjects, as on your agricultural policy,, 
for example, by several of the supporters of your gen- 
eral system. These remarks may indeed have been 
deficient in that hearty good-will which should be our 
spontaneous sentiment to our political chief, and 
which I have generally accorded to you in no niggard 
spirit; but pardon me if I now observe, with frankness 
but with great respect, that you might have found 
some reason for this, if you had cared to do so, in the 
want of courtesy in debate which I had the frequent 
mortification of experiencing from you since your 
accession to power, 

"Under these circumstances, stated without pas- 
sion, and viewed, I am sure, without acrimony, I am 
bound to say that I look upon the fact of not having 
received your summons, coupled with the ostentatious 
manner in which it has been bruited about, as a pain- 
ful personal procedure which the past by no means 
authorized." 

Peel to Disraeli. 

""Whitehall, 
"February 6th, 1844. 

"My dear Sir: Although the omission on my part 
to request your attendance at the meeting of Parlia- 

312 



THE PEEL-DISRAELI ANTAGONISM 

ment was not an accident or inadvertent omission, it 
certainly was not the result of any feeling of personal 
irritation or ill-will on account of observations made 
by you in the House of Commons. 

"I hope I have not a good memory for expressions 
used in debate which cause surprise or pain at the 
moment, and it would be quite unsuitable to the spirit 
in which your letter is written, and in which it is re- 
ceived, were I, after the lapse of several months, ta 
refresh my recollection of such expressions, if such 
were used. 

"My reason for not sending you the usual circular 
was an honest doubt whether I was entitled to send 
it — whether toward the close of the last session of 
Parliament you had not expressed opinions as to the 
conduct of the Government in respect to more than 
one important branch of public policy, foreign and 
domestic, which precluded me, in justice both to you 
and to myself, from preferring personally an earnest 
request for your attendance. 

"If you will refer to the debate on the Irish Arms 
Bill, and to that on Servia, and recall to your recollec- 
tion the general tenor of your observations on the 
conduct of the Government, you will, I think, admit 
that my doubt was not an unreasonable one. 

"It gives me, however, great satisfaction to infer 
from your letter — as I trust I am justified in infer- 
ring — that my impressions were mistaken, and my 
scruples unnecessary. 

"I will not conclude without noticing two or three 
points adverted to in your letter. 

"I am unconscious of having on any occasion 
treated you with the want of that respect and courtesy 
which I readily admit are justly your due. If I did 
so, the act was wholly unintentional on my part. 

"Any comments that were made on expressions 

313 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

used by you toward the Government were, so far as is 
consistent with my knowledge, altogether spontane- 
ous on the part of the member from whom they pro- 
ceeded. They were at any rate not made at my insti- 
gation or suggestion, direct or indirect. 

"Lastly, I can not call to mind that I have men- 
tioned to a single person — excepting to the one or two 
to whom the mention was absolutely unavoidable — 
that I had omitted to address to you a request for your 
attendance. Nothing could be further from my wishes 
or feelings than that there should be any ostentatious 
notice of the omission." 

Once more had Peel tried to place Disraeli in a 
difficulty; he was to be ostracized not from the Gov- 
ernment only, but from the party itself. Things did 
not mend when Factory legislation followed. For 
here again the Young England party, supporting 
Lord Ashley's resolution to restrict the hours of labor 
for women and for children under thirteen years of 
age to ten a day, twice defeated the Government in 
the Lobby. Peel's account of the matter, rendered to 
the Queen, is quite candid: "The additional restric- 
tion of labor was opposed by your Majesty's servants 
on the ground that it exposed the manufacturers of 
this country to a very formidable competition with 
those of other countries, in which labor is not re- 
stricted ; that it must lead at a very early period to a 
great reduction in the wages of the workmen," etc. — 
Time, on the side of Disraeli, has refuted Peel's 
premises. "A great body of the agricultural mem- 
bers," Peel proceeds, "partly out of hostility to the 
Anti-Corn Law League, partly from the influence of 

314 



THE PEEL-DISRAELI ANTAGONISM 

humane feelings, voted against the Government." 
For good or for evil, Peel, though he led the Country 
party, was a manufacturer's man. King Ernest of 
Hanover's despairing remark may here have some ap- 
plication: "The jenny will out." 

A Coercion Bill for Ireland had equally failed to 
secure Disraeli's sympathy; and it is interesting dur- 
ing the passage of Mr. Wyndham's Land Bill to recall 
that Disraeli, sixty years ago, declared: "If the noble 
Lord (John Russell) will come forward with a compre- 
hensive plan to settle the Irish question, I will sup- 
port it, even though I might afterward feel it neces- 
sary to retire from Parliament or to place my seat at 
the disposal of my constituency." All this, in Peel's 
eyes, was crotchety enough, no doubt. 

Convincing proof of Peel's prejudice is afforded by 
letters Sir James Graham wrote to him and he to Sir 
James Graham. Disraeli asked Sir James to appoint 
his brother to a Parliamentary clerkship. Such re- 
quests are the commonplaces of politics. Yet Sir 
James writes to Peel: 

"I was astonished at receiving a letter from Dis- 
raeli asking for a place for his brother. His letter is 
an impudent one, doubly so when I remember his con- 
duct and language in the House of Commons toward 
the end of the last session. I thought it better to 
answer him by return of post. To have bantered him 
on party ties would have been degrading. To have 
held out vague hopes would have been represented to 
him as unfair. I determined therefore to give him a 
civil but flat refusal." 

315 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

Because Disraeli had not seen everything with the 
eye of ministers, one of them thinks him "impudent" 
in his brother's behalf, and another — Peel himself — - 
dances to this strange tune. 

"I am very glad," he replies to Graham, who was 
by way of being a friend to Disraeli, "that Mr. Disraeli 
has asked for an office for his brother. It is a good 
thing when such a man puts his shabbiness on record. 
He asked me for office himself, and I was not sur- 
prised that being refused he became independent and 
a patriot. But to ask favors after his conduct last, 
session is too bad. However, it is a bridle in his 
mouth." 

The Minister who wrote of this shabbiness had 
written complacently enough that half the Country- 
gentlemen had written to him for baronetcies : not for 
posts of service, but favors barren to the State. "A 
bridle in his mouth!" Sir Eobert, when he wrote that,, 
must have had in mind a horse that might not look 
out of the stable door at others allowed to leap over 
the hedge. 

The Anti-Repeal speeches of Disraeli pass in com- 
mon parlance as philippics of unmeasured violence 
and virulence. I doubt if any such brand will be put 
upon them in the near future. Readers who measure 
them against other weapons of speech used in Parlia- 
mentary campaigning will find that the difference lies 
in the quality of the steel, not in the quantity of it, nor 
in the weight and rapidity with which the blows fell. 
And these thrusts went home; others, clumsy, miss 
their mark; but in that expertness is no malice nor 

316 



THE PEEL-DISRAELI ANTAGONISM 

in that clumsiness any magnanimity. Party warfare 
is party warfare: it is neither brotherhood nor peace. 
There are the usual shibboleths; and a shifty rhetoric 
supplies the combatants with most of them. Disraeli 
was not as a rule rhetorical; perhaps, then, we notice 
the more his infrequent lapses. When he said that 
ministers had found the Whigs bathing and had taken 
their clothes; when he named Sir Robert "the great 
Parliamentary middleman" and said that Peel's life 
was one great Appropriation Clause, he raised a 
laugh too cheaply; and he knew it, for he himself had 
defended Peel's opportunism in Reform. But this is 
the stage fencing with which the House is familiar. 
Disraeli merely spoke its tongue, stooping. On other 
occasions he raised it up to his own heights. Nor can 
one wonder if he furbished up all manner of weapons 
for this unparalleled battle. Young Englander as he 
was, and therefore with a mission of amelioration for 
the manufacturing population, he was to sit for an 
agricultural constituency; and it was agriculture that 
was not only menaced by Free Trade, but betrayed by 
Peel. 

To forget these things is an idleness which I will 
not practise by ignoring the likelihood that a Disraeli 
not slighted by Peel might have brought a more indul- 
gent eye to Peel's metamorphosis. We condemn in 
other nations what we gloss over in our own; repro- 
bate in our enemies the qualities we tolerate in our 
friends, and see (some of us) in our families beauties 
and excellences to which we should remain blind in 
the bodies and minds of strangers. This indulgence 

317 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

goes by great names — patriotism, charity, love of the 
brethren. Its converse, therefore — the dislike of 
what is distant from us, the suspicion with which we 
meet suspicion — need not be called any very hard 
terms. Disraeli was in the mood no doubt to throw 
his dart, but, above all, Sir Robert gave himself away 
as a target— a "sentient target," that was the pity of 
it. Some of the quotations commonly made are flip- 
pant and foppish enough without their context; the 
spangle is handed round, while the robe from which it 
is plucked is thrust aside. The spangle is no covering. 
Between Free Trade and Protection the battle is not 
over. These lines are written at a moment when a 
powerful Minister has put down on his program a 
preferential tariff between England and her Colonies. 
The old fiction of faction, invented in great part to do 
despite to Disraeli, that none but a knave or a fool 
would combat Free Trade, is passing, is past. At least 
it is arguable whether a nation should destroy the 
home granaries on which it may be driven to depend 
in time of war and destroy, too, the fields from which 
it may best recruit its army. A foreseeing British 
officer ^ made his "Plea for the Peasant," in the 
'eighties of the nineteenth century — to deaf ears. In 
his mind's eye, he saw in the procession of peasants 
leaving the countryside for the towns and the Colo- 
nies a Retreating Army: he saw the White Flag in the 
white face of the slums. To that plea the Boer war 
has opened all ears, save the ears of atrophy, to the 

J Lieut. -General Sir William Butler in Far Out (which time has shown 
that he was not). 

318 




PJiotograph by Walker & Cockerell. 

LORD BEACONSFIELD. 

After the portrait by Sir J. E. Millais, Bart., R. A., 

In the possession of the Hon. W. F. Danvers Sinith, M.P. 

The sittings for which were interrupted by Lord Beaconsfield's last illness. 



THE PEEL-DISRAELI ANTAGONISM 

need of a yeoman army now. Nor do we forsake the 
great ideal of Free Trade, nor fail to see in it a first 
step toward the realization of that dream of man's 
brotherhood, which will haunt the world till the 
world is cold, when we pause to count the number of 
prophecies prophesied by Free Trade prophets in the 
'forties which time has left unfulfilled, and when we 
behold on the map the boundaries, sheer and abrupt 
as ever, raised everywhere against our traffic by those, 
even of our own children, for whom we have laid our 
own landmarks down. England against all the world: 
nay, rather, England for all the world, and all the 
world against England. Free Trade marks us then as 
that great thing — a band of visionaries. But in the 
Parliamentary debates one looks in vain for visions; 
they are all about provisions — a very differently 
debatable matter. 

On, then, we pass, to that Third Reading of the 
Repeal of the Corn Duties, which was to pass by the 
large majority of combined Peelites and the old party 
of Free Trade. It was the strangest hour that ever 
struck in the life of a statesman: it was the hour of 
his triumph and of his capitulation; an hour of emo- 
tions, described to the quick in the Biography of Lord 
George Bentinck; an hour in which, moreover, the 
savior of his country, as he was hailed by his enemies 
of old time, appealed to pity as a martyr, since he had 
not been followed into the hostile camp by the whole 
of his former political friends. "Sir," he said, with 
a gravity that lent almost freshness to matter-of- 
course phrases, "I foresaw that the course which I 

319 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

have pursued from a sense of public duty would ex- 
pose me to serious sacrifices. I foresaw, as its inevita- 
ble result, that I must forfeit friendships which I most 
highly valued — that I must interrupt political rela- 
tions in which I felt sincere pride.^ But the smallest 
of all the penalties which I anticipated were the con- 
tinued venomous attacks of the honorable member 
for Shrewsbury." The hit was a good one; if it had 
not a strict relation to facts, at least it repeated the 
common cry that had passed from pen to pen in the 
party newspapers. The alien who wrote novels had 
attacked the great English Minister: let that be 
known in favor of the great English Minister; and let 
the great English Minister and the multitude con- 
veniently forget the bitterness with which he had 

1 Disraeli says this better for Sir Robert than Sir Robert said it for himself. 
The living, personal passage comes from the Biography of Lord George 
Bentinck, where Disraeli describes Peel's defeat on the Irish Coercion Bill 
in 1846 : "But it was not merely their numbers that attracted the anxious ob- 
servation of the Treasury Bench as the Protectionists passed in defile before 
the minister to the hostile Lobby. It was impossible that he could have 
marked them without emotion : the flower of that great party which had been 
so proud to follow one who had been so proud to lead them. They were men 
to gain whose hearts and the hearts of their fathers had been the aim and ex- 
ultation of his life. They had extended to him an unlimited confidence and 
an admiration without stint. They had stood by him in the darkest hour, and 
had borne him from the depths of political despair to the proudest of living 
positions. Right or wrong, they were men of honor, breeding, and refine- 
ment, high and generous character, great weight and station in the country, 
which they had ever placed at his disposal. They had been not only his fol- 
lowers, but his friends ; had joined in the same pastimes, drank from the 
same cup, and in the pleasantness of private life had often forgotten together 
the cares and strife of politics. He must have felt something of this, while 
the Manners, the Somersets, the Bentincks, the Lowthers, and the Len- 
noxes passed before him And those country gentlemen, "those gentlemen 
of England," of whom, but five years ago, the very same building was ring- 

320 



THE PEEL-DISRAELI ANTAGONISM 

formerly been assailed by his new-found friends, by 
Oobden and by Bright; let him be the ark of the na- 
tional covenant against which but one sacrilegious 
arm was raised; and that arm a traitor's. It is 
still more surprising," added the Minister, "that 
if such were his views of my character, he should 
have been ready, as I think he was, to unite his 
fortunes with mine in office, thereby implying the 
strongest proof which a public man can give of 
confidence in the honor and integrity of a Minister 
of the Crown." 

Thus was Disraeli's letter of application for office 
under Sir Robert in 1841 flung into the arena in 1846. 
After five years' lapse of time, after the change of 
Sir Robert's policy, after the cumulative effect of the 
"appropriations" which long climax had brought to 

ing with his pride of being the leader — if his heart were hardened to Sir 
Charles Burrell, Sir William Jolliffe, Sir Charles Knightly, Sir John Trol- 
lope, Sir Edward Kerrison, Sir John Tyrrell, he surely must have had a 
pang, when his eye rested on Sir John Yarde BuUer, his choice and pattern 
country gentleman, whom he had himself selected and invited but six years 
back to move a vote of want of confidence in the Whig Government, in order, 
against the feeling of the Court, to install Sir Eobert Peel in their stead. 
They trooped on : all the men of metal and large-acred squires, whose spirit 
he had so often quickened and whose counsel he had so often solicited in his 
fine Conservative speeches in Whitehall Gardens : Mr. Bankes, with a Par- 
liamentary name of two centuries, and Mr. Christopher from that broad Lin- 
colnshire which Protection had created; and the Mileses and the Henleys 
were there ; and the Buncombes, the Liddells, and the Yorkes ; and Devon 
had sent there the stout heart of Mr. Buck — and Wiltshire, the pleasant 
presence of Walter Long. Mr. Newdegate was there, whom Sir Robert had 
himself recommended to the confidence of the electors of Warwickshire, as 
one of whom he had the highest hopes ; and Mr. Alderman Thompson was 
there, who, also through Sir Robert's selection, had seconded the assault upon 
the Whigs, led on by Sir John Buller. But the list is too long ; or good 
names remain behind." 

23 321 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

their acme, Disraeli must have felt at once the in- 
justice of this sort of allusion to his open and honor- 
able support of the Minister in earlier years. The 
mere fact that the Minister had brought into debate 
a confidential letter, with no bearing whatever on the 
current diflflculty his own recantation had created, 
was scarcely to that Minister's credit; for such inter- 
changes between a leader and his followers are com- 
monly regarded as "under seal." Disraeli, therefore, 
had no need whatever to seek shelter under that de- 
nial of having "sought to unite his fortunes" with 
Peel's which he proceeded to make in words that it is 
better to quote in full from Hansard: 

"Mr. Speaker, the right honorable gentleman hav- 
ing made an insinuation against me, which the cheer 
of his supporters opposite showed me had conveyed 
a very erroneous impression, I think the House will 
feel that under these circumstances it is not pre- 
sumptuous in me to ask a moment's attention to a 
subject so peculiarly personal as the insinuation of 
the right honorable gentleman. I understand the in- 
sinuation of the right honorable gentleman, if it 
meant anything, to be this — that my opposition, or, as 
he called it, my envenomed opposition to him, was oc- 
casioned by my being disappointed of office. Now, hav- 
ing been for five years in Opposition to the late Gov- 
ernment, an active, though I w^ell know not an influen- 
tial, supporter of the right honorable gentleman, and 
having been favored by him with an acknowledgment 
of his sense of my slight services, I do not think there 
would have been anything dishonorable for me if, 

322 



THE PEEL-DISRAELI ANTAGONISM 

when the new Government was formed in 1841, I had 
been an applicant for offtce. • It might have been in 
good taste or not, but at least there would have been 
nothing dishonorable; but I can assure the House 
nothing of the kind ever occurred. I never shall — it 
is totally foreign to my nature — make an application 
for any place. But in 1841, when the Government was 
formed — I am sorry to touch upon such a matter, but 
insinuations have been made by paragraphs in the 
newspapers, and now by charges in this House — I 
have never adverted to the subject, but when these 
charges are made I must — in 1841, when the Govern- 
ment was formed, an individual possessing, as I be- 
lieved him to possess, the most intimate and complete 
confidence of the right honorable gentleman called on 
me and communicated with me. 

"There was certainly some conversation — I have 
never adverted to these circumstances, and should not 
now unless compelled, because they were under a seal 
of secrecy confided to me. There was some communi- 
cation, not at all of that nature which the House per- 
haps supposes, between the right honorable gentle- 
man and me, but of the most amicable kind. I can 
only say this — it was a transaction not originated by 
me, but one which any gentleman, I care not how high 
his honor or spirit, might entertain to-morrow. I 
need not go into my conduct consequent on that occa- 
sion. If I took my course in this House according to 
the malevolent insinuations made, I do not mean by 
the right honorable gentleman, but by others, and now 
they are sneered at by him. COh, oh!') Some person 

323 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

says, 'Oh, oh!' If I thought the majority of the House 
believed that I was under the influence of motives 
of this character when I rose, I certainly should never 
rise again in this House. ('Question!') This is the ques- 
tion— it is a fair personal explanation. I say a com- 
munication was made to me — not authorized by the 
right honorable gentleman — he is not fond of author- 
izing people — but a communication was made to me — 
though no doubt there may have been mistakes and 
misconceptions. But with reference to the course I 
afterward followed, I declare I never took a decided 
step until my constituents, in consequence of the 
pledges I had given in 1843, called upon me for a 
definite opinion on Protection. This was two years 
after the circumstances of which I have spoken took 
place. I then gave a silent vote against the policy of 
the right honorable gentleman. The year after that I 
opposed him, but no one could call it an envenomed op- 
position. The instant I did that, these rumors were 
circulated. The right honorable gentleman, I dare 
say, alluded in a moment of inadvertence or great 
irritation to this subject. ('Oh, oh!') 

"To me it is perfectly immaterial, whatever he may 
have intended. There is a line between public and 
private communications. It was not till I took that 
course that these rumors were circulated. A gentle- 
man, a member of this House, who has allowed me 
to mention his name, told me that a member of the 
Government — I believe a member of the Government 
— told him that a Cabinet Minister had a letter in his 
pocket from me, asking for the Ministry at Madrid, 

324 



THE PEEL-DISRAELI ANTAGONISM 

and that it would be read aloud the next time I at- 
tacked the Government. These rumors were always 
circulated — they were put forward directly or indi- 
i^ectly — but I can say that I never asked a favor of the 
Government, not even one of those mechanical things 
which persons are obliged to ask; yet these assertions 
were always made in that way, though I never asked 
a favor; and, as regards myself, I never, directly or 
indirectly, solicited office. Anything more unfounded 
than the rumor circulated to-night, that my opposi- 
tion to the right honorable gentleman has ever been 
influenced by such considerations, there can not be. 
(Interruption.) If my explanation be not satisfactory, 
it is only because I am prevented from making it. But 
I have only one observation to make. It is very possi- 
ble if, in 1841, I had been offered office, I dare say it 
would have been a very slight office, but I dare say I 
should have accepted it. I have not that high opinion 
of myself to suppose that the more important offices 
of the Government would have been offered to my 
acceptance; but I can only say I am very glad I did not 
accept it. But with respect to my being a solicitor 
of office, it is entirely unfounded. Whatever occurred 
in 1841 between the right honorable gentleman and 
myself was entirely attributable to the intervention 
of another gentleman whom I supposed to be in the 
confidence of the right honorable baronet, and I dare 
say it may have arisen from a misconception. But I 
do most unequivocally and upon my honor declare 
that I never have for a moment been influenced by 
such considerations in the House." 

325 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

Then Sir Eobert rose again: 

"The honorable gentleman," he said, "has not cor- 
rectly stated what I said. I did not say that he was 
influenced in his opposition by personal motives. The 
words I said were these: If he, reviewing my political 
life previously to 1841, which was of the duration of 
thirty years, really believed that I deserved the char- 
acter he gave of me to-night, then it was not right 
that in 1841 he should accept me as a leader, and not 
only accept me as a leader, but that he should have 
intimated to me that he was not unwilling to give that 
proof of confidence that would have been implied by 
the acceptance of office." 

Much had happened in those five intervening years 
for Disraeli. He had pressed into them more effort 
than five decades in the lives of common men absorb. 
But how could anything have effaced from that active 
mind the memory that he had solicited "recognition" 
from Peel? How have forgotten Peel's cutting re- 
ception of that solicitation? If originally, in his own 
mind, he refined between "recognition" and office, and 
had hugged that subtlety meanwhile for a covering 
to his own confusion, we are aware, with the letters 
before us, that any such distinction of terms has no 
more definite form than that of a flattering prepos- 
session. Disraeli's words imply that Lord Lyndhurst, 
his political godfather, spoke to Peel, either before 
or after the letter was sent from Grosvenor Gate, as, 
indeed, was likely enough to be the case; and the let- 
ter itself may easily have been written at Lord Lynd- 
hurst's suggestion, private at the time, though pru- 

326 



THE PEEL-DISRAELI ANTAGONISM 

dently divulged in 1846. Even so, and at best, as a 
statement of fact, Disraeli's words betray an unwont- 
ed want of perspicuity. On the main point they are 
misleading; since he repudiates any direct applica- 
tion for ofilce. The oblique blow struck at him came 
as out of the darkness; it had no force or sting in it if 
faced. But it had all the ring and intent of a grave 
accusation; and Disraeli, in meeting it, showed an 
ambling unpreparedness. 

Among minor uncertainties, one thing seems cer- 
tain: Disraeli can not at once have remembered his 
letter and have intended to deny it. Those who will 
allow him the meanness to do so, must yet hesitate to 
allow him the folly. Were his letter read, he had 
nothing to lose; why then should he deny it, when that 
denial was likely to be followed by exposure, and ex- 
posure by ruin? It has been said that he could give 
Peel the lie calmly, knowing that he could count on 
Peel's magnanimity not to convict him by the produc- 
tion of the document. That, of course, is wild talk. 
Peel was too great a Parliamentarian ("the greatest 
member of Parliament who ever lived," Disraeli long 
afterward called him) not to have the instinct to put 
upon the table the letter he had cited. The very rules 
of the House indicated that procedure. And, indeed, 
in the small hours of the morning following the de- 
bate he was found by one of his household fishing in a 
sea of papers. Told he should be in bed, he replied he 
was looking for Disraeli's letter; but he could not find 
it. The story of his sitting with the letter in his 
pocket, challenged to produce it, yet withholding it 

327 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

out of good feeling for his opponent, is one for which 
baffled common sense has the right to demand a 
reference to chapter and verse. The publication of 
the letters, once found, was inevitable; and was felt 
to be so by Lord Eowton, without whose permission 
they could not have been printed. That permission 
he gave in good faith, in full confidence, and, so to 
say, with nothing up his sleeve; and I commit no 
breach of trust in adding that among the unpublished 
papers of Lord Beaconsfield nothing is found to shed 
more light on what must therefore always remain an 
obscured and doubtful passage in Disraeli's long and 
strenuous political history. 

Meanwhile, readers will follow, with quick sym- 
pathy, the impulse behind the words which Mr. Au- 
gustine Birrell, too easily adopting the Peel "mag- 
nanimity" theory, and even the Disraeli- Adventurer 
theory, delivers from the enemy's camp: 

"What Peel magnanimously in the heat of conflict 
and in the face of insult forbore from doing, Mr. 
Parker does in 1899. It is of the essence of mag- 
nanimity that it should be complete and eternal. To 
suppress a document for fifty years and until the man 
who wrote it is dead is no kindness. No good has been 
done by publication. Disraeli never pretended to be 
a man of nicety. He ate his peck of dirt and achieved 
his measure of dignity. In the vulgar struggle for 
existence Disraeli did some mean and shabby things; 
the letter of 1841 was perhaps one of them, the denial 
of it in 1846 was perhaps another, but a mean and 
shabby man Disraeli was not, and his reputation, such. 

328 



THE PEEL-DISRAELI ANTAGONISM 

as it is, stands just where it did before these dis- 
closures. The two letters are out of place in these 
stately memorials of a savior of society." 

Those, credulous, who join Mr. Birrell in his jaunty 
admissions of Disraeli's shabbinesses, must be chal- 
lenged again to produce for the incredulous their 
chapter and their verse. It is precisely because Dis- 
raeli is candid, natural, easy, and self-respecting in 
the ordinary course of his public and private life, that 
we decline to conclude, on halting evidence and in 
defiance of all human probabilities, that he was guilty, 
in this Peel episode, of a mean and — what is more 
to the point if you allege him to be a Machiavelli — 
a purposeless and yet a risky and punishable im- 
posture. 

"They say Peel will never get over my appoint- 
ment." That was Disraeli's singularly impersonal re- 
port to his sister when, in the January of 1849, he 
became Tory leader in the House of Commons, 
Impersonally aloof even here, he colorlessly records a 
fact, triumphant in itself for him, tragic in itself for 
the other. We are spared any "poor" before the Peel, 
any mark of exclamation thereafter. In the quietness 
of the passage lies its strength. Time, which never 
wearies of startling the prig and the pedant with 
displays of the unexpected, showed Peel, the great Op- 
portunist, that he had missed an opportunity; and to 
us has since proved that Disraeli, in wishing to take 
official work in 1841, was not the victim of self-illusion 
or of ambition beyond his powers' bounds. 



329 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

Nor is this "the last phase" of the great Peel-Dis- 
raeli antagonism. Peel's active dislike of Disraeli 
Disraeli's illustrates afresh a very old prejudice 
Portrait of against the Unintelligible — it is an inci- 

Peel 

dent m the war waged m all lands and 
ages by Commonplace against Eomance. Disraeli at 
least took pains to understand Peel, in the exercise 
of a tolerance from which he could not be deterred. 
Peel's leadership of the Tory party was broken by Dis- 
raeli; but Peel lives for posterity in Disraeli's por- 
trait in the Bentinck biography. The hand that had 
exchanged buffets with him in sharp public encounter 
was the hand that has most searchingly and yet most 
sympathetically studied and reproduced his linea- 
ments. The party rank denied to him by Peel came to 
him at the hands of others, and made him, among 
other things, possible as Peel's appraiser. He was 
no longer shut out; the old soreness was healed; and 
his magnanimity becomes greatly apparent in his 
tribute to Peel's. Let us here then piece together 
fragments to make a perfect whole statue of Peel, far 
better than that of marble which still turns its back 

on Disraeli in Parliament Square: 
t 
"Nature had combined in Sir Robert Peel many 

admirable parts. In him a physical frame, incapable 
of fatigue, was united with an understanding equally 
vigorous and flexible. He was gifted with the faculty 
of method in the highest degree; and with great 
powers of application which were sustained by a pro- 
digious memory; while he could communicate his ac- 
quisitions with clear and fluent elocution. Such a man, 

330 



DISRAELI'S PORTRAIT OF PEEL 

under any circumstances and in any sphere of life, 
would probably have become remarkable. Ordained 
from his youth to be busied with the affairs of a great 
empire, such a man, after long years of observation, 
practise, and perpetual discipline would have become 
what Sir Kobert Peel was in the latter portion of his 
life, a transcendent administrator of public business 
and a matchless master of debate in a popular assem- 
bly. In the course of time the method which was 
natural to Sir Robert Peel had matured into a habit 
of such expertness that no one in the despatch of 
affairs ever adapted the means more fitly to the end; 
his original flexibility had ripened into consummate 
tact; his memory had accumulated such stores of 
political information that he could bring luminously 
together all that was necessary to establish or to 
illustrate a subject; while in the House of Commons 
he was equally eminent in exposition and in reply: 
in the first, distinguished by his arrangement, his 
clearness, and his completeness; in the second, ready, 
ingenious, and adroit, prompt in detecting the weak 
points of his adversary and dexterous in extricating 
himself from an embarrassing position. 

"Thus gifted and thus accomplished, Sir Robert 
Peel had a great deficiency; he was without imagina- 
tion. Wanting imagination, lie wanted prescience. 
No one was more sagacious when dealing with the 
circumstances before him; no one penetrated the 
present with more acuteness and accuracy. His judg- 
ment was faultless provided he had not to deal with 
the future. Thus it happened through his long career, 

331 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

that while he always was looked upon as the most 
prudent and safest of leaders, he ever, after a pro- 
tracted display of admirable tactics, concluded his 
campaigns by surrendering at discretion. He was so 
adroit that he could prolong resistance even beyond 
its term, but so little foreseeing that often in the very 
triumph of his maneuvers he found himself in an un- 
tenable position. And so it came to pass that Roman 
Catholic Emancipation, Parliamentary Reform, and 
the Abrogation of our Commercial System, were all 
carried in haste or in passion and without conditions 
or mitigatory arrangements. Sir Robert Peel had a 
peculiarity which is perhaps natural with men of very 
great talents who have not the creative faculty; he had 
a dangerous sympathy with the creations of others. 
Instead of being cold and wary, as was commonly sup- 
posed, he was impulsive and even inclined to rashness. 
When he was ambiguous, unsatisfactory, reserved^ 
tortuous, it was that he was perplexed, that he did not 
see his way, that the routine which he had admirably 
administered failed him, and that his own mind was 
not constructed to create a substitute for the custom 
which was crumbling away. Then he was ever on the 
lookout for new ideas, and when he embraced them he 
did so with eagerness and often with precipitancy; he 
always carried these novel plans to an extent which 
even their projectors or chief promoters had usually 
not anticipated; as was seen for example in the settle- 
ment of the currency. Although apparently wrapped 
up in himself and supposed to be egotistical, except 
in seasons of rare exhaltation, as in the years 

332 




THE MONUMENT IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 
Designed by Sir Edgar Boelmi, R.A. 



DISRAELI'S PORTRAIT OF PEEL 

1844-5, when he reeled under the favor of the 
Court, the homage of the Continent, and the servil- 
ity of Parliament, he was really deficient in self- 
confidence. 

"After a great disaster it was observable of Sir 
Robert Peel that his mind seemed always to expand. 
His life was one of perpetual education. No one more 
clearly detected the mistakes which he had made or 
changed his course under such circumstances with 
more promptness; but it was the past and the present 
that alone engrossed his mind. After the catastrophe 
of '30, he broke away from the Duke of Wellington 
and announced to his friends with decision that hence- 
forth he would serve under no man. There are few 
things more remarkable in Parliamentary history 
than the manner in which Sir Robert Peel headed an 
Opposition for ten years without attempting to form 
the opinions of his friends or instilling into them a 
single guiding principle, but himself displaying all 
that time on every subject of debate wise counsels, ad- 
ministrative skill, and accomplished powers of discus- 
sion. He could give to his friends no guiding princi- 
ple, for he had none, and he kept sitting on those 
benches till somebody should give him one. 

"After destroying the Tory party in 1846, he fell 
a-thinking again over the past and the present as he 
did after his fall in '30, and again arrived at a great 
conclusion. In '30 he said he would act no longer as a 
subordinate; in '46 he said he would act no longer as 
a partizan. ... No one knew better than Sir 
Robert Peel that without party connection that Par- 

333 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

liamentary government which he so much admired 
would be intolerable; it would be at the same time the 
weakest and the most corrupt government in the 
world. In casting this slur upon party, Sir Robert 
Peel meant only to degrade the combinations of which 
he had experience and by which he had risen. Ex- 
cluded from power which he ought to have wielded 
for a quarter of a century, he sat on his solitary bench 
revolving the past. At sixty he began to comprehend 
his position. The star of Manchester seemed as it 
were to rise from the sunset of Oxford, and he felt he 
had sacrificed his natural career to an obsolete edu- 
cation and a political system for which he could not 
secure even an euthanasia. 

"Sir Robert Peel had a bad manner, of which he 
was sensible; he was by nature very shy; but, forced 
early in life into eminent positions, he had formed 
an artificial manner, haughtily stiff or exuberantly 
bland, of which generally speaking he could not di- 
vest himself. There were, however, occasions when he 
did succeed in this, and on these, usually when he was 
alone with an individual whom he wished to please, 
his manner was not only unaffectedly cordial but he 
could even charm. When he was ridiculed by his op- 
ponents in '41, as one little adapted for a Court, and 
especially the Court of a Queen, those who knew him 
well augured different results from his high promo- 
tion, and they were right. But generally speaking, 
he was never at his ease and never very content ex- 
cept in the House of Commons. Even there he was 
not natural, though there the deficiency was compen- 

334 



DISRAELI'S PORTRAIT OF PEEL 

sated for by his unrivaled facility, which passed cur- 
rent with the vulgar eye for the precious quality for 
which it was substituted. He had obtained a com- 
plete control over his temper, which was by nature 
somewhat fiery. His disposition was good; there was 
nothing petty about him; he was very free from ran- 
cor; he was not only not vindictive, but partly by 
temperament and still more perhaps by discipline, he 
was even magnanimous. 

"For so very clever a man he was deficient in the 
knowledge of human nature. The prosperous routine 
of his youth was not favorable to the development of 
this faculty. It was never his lot to struggle; although 
forty years in Parliament, it is remarkable that Sir 
Robert Peel never represented a popular constituency 
or stood a contested election. As he advanced in life 
he was always absorbed in thought; and abstraction 
is not friendly to a perception of character, or to a fine 
appreciation of the circumstances of the hour. . . . 
After the Keform of the House of Commons, Sir 
Robert Peel was naturally anxious to discover who 
was to be the rival of his life, and it is noticeable that 
he was not successful in his observations. He never 
did justice to Lord John Russell until he found Lord 
John was not only his rival, but his successful one, 
and then, according to his custom and his nature, he 
did the present Minister of England full justice.^ No 
person could be more sensible of the grave import of 
the events in Canada which occurred on his accession 

' "Lord John Russell has written me a very charming letter about the 
Political Biography " wrote Disraeli to his sister, January 26, 1852. 

335 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

to office in '34 than Sir Robert Peel. They were the 
commencement of great calamities and occasioned 
him proportionate anxiety. It was obvious that 
everything depended on the character of the indi- 
vidual sent out by the metropolis to encounter this 
emergency. The highest qualities of administration 
were demanded. After much pondering, Sir Robert 
selected the amiable and popular Lord Canterbury. 
It was entirely his own selection, and it was perhaps 
the most unfit that could be made. But Sir Robert 
Peel associated Lord Canterbury with the awful au- 
thority of twenty years of the Speaker's chair. That 
authority had controlled him, and of course he 
thought it must subdue the Canadians. It was like a 
grown-up man in the troubles of life going back for 
advice to his schoolmaster. . . . 

"As an orator Sir Robert Peel had perhaps the 
most available talent that has ever been brought to 
bear in the House of Commons. We have mentioned 
that both in exposition and in reply he was equally 
eminent. His statements were perspicuous, complete, 
and dignified; when he combated the objections or 
criticized the propositions of an opponent, he was 
adroit and acute; no speaker ever sustained a process 
of argumentation in a public assembly more lucidly, 
and none as debaters have united in so conspicuous 
a degree prudence with promptness. In the higher 
effects of oratory he was not successful. His vocabu- 
lary was ample and never mean; but it was neither 
rich nor rare. His speeches will afford no sentiment 
of surpassing grandeur or beauty that will linger in 

336 



DISRAELI'S PORTRAIT OF PEEL 

the ears of coming generations. He embalmed no 
great political truth in immortal words. His flights 
were ponderous; he soared with the wing of the vul- 
ture rather than the plume of the eagle; and his 
perorations when most elaborate were most unwieldy. 
In pathos he was quite deficient; when he attempted 
to touch the tender passions, it was painful. His face 
became distorted, like that of a woman who wants to 
cry but can not succeed. Orators certainly should not 
shed tears, but there are moments when, as the 
Italians say, the voice should weep. The taste of Sir 
Robert Peel was highly cultivated, but it was not orig- 
inally fine; he had no wit; but he had a keen sense of 
the ridiculous and an abundant vein of genuine humor. 
Notwithstanding his artificial reserve, he had a 
hearty and a merry laugh; and sometimes his mirth 
was uncontrollable. He was gifted with an admirable 
organ; perhaps the finest that has been heard in the 
House in our days, unless we except the thrilling tones 
of O'Connell. Sir Robert Peel also modulated his voice 
with great skill. His enunciation was very clear, 
though somewhat marred by provincialisms. His 
great deficiency was want of nature, which made him 
often appear even with a good cause more plausible 
than persuasive and more specious than convincing. 
He may be said to have gradually introduced a new 
style into the House of Commons which was suited to 
the age in which he chiefly flourished and to the novel 
elements of the assembly which he had to guide. He 
had to deal with greater details than his predecessors, 

and he had in many instances to address those who 
23 337 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

were deficient in previous knowledge. > Something of 
the lecture, therefore, entered into his displays. This 
style may be called the didactic." 

In the next passage, as in one that has gone before, 
we seem to get* autobiography rather than biography; 
and close as we are to Peel, we are closer to Disraeli: 
"It is often mentioned by those political writers who 
on such a subject communicate to their readers their 
theories and not their observations of facts, that there 
was little sympathy between Sir Eobert Peel and the 
great aristocratic party of which he was the leader; 
that on the one side there was a reluctant deference, 
and on the other a guidance without sentiment. But 
this was quite a mistake. An aristocracy hesitates 
before it yields its confidence, but it never does so 
grudgingly. In political connections under such 
circumstances the social feeling mingles and the 
principle of honor which governs gentlemen. Such 
a following is usually cordial and faithful. An aris- 
tocracy is rather apt to exaggerate the qualities and 
magnify the importance of a plebeian leader. They 
are prompted to do this both by a natural feeling of 
self-love and by a sentiment of generosity. Far from 
any coldness subsisting between Sir Robert Peel and 
the great houses which had supported him through his 
long career, there never was a minister who was treat- 
ed with such nice homage, it may be said with such 
affectionate devotion. The proudest in the land were 
prouder to be his friends, and he returned the feeling 
to its full extent and in all its sincerity." 

The sketch of Peel's personal appearance is then 

338 



DISRAELI'S PORTRAIT OF PEEL 

drawn by a master-hand : "Sir Kobert Peel was a very 
good-looking man. He was tall, and, though of latter 
years he had become portly, had to the last a 
comely presence. Thirty years ago, when he was 
young and lithe with curling brown hair, he had a very 
radiant expression of countenance. His brow was 
very distinguished, not so much for its intellectual de- 
velopment, although that was of a very high order, as 
for its remarkably frank expression, so different from 
his character in life. The expression of the brow 
might even be said to amount to beauty. The rest of 
the features did not, however, sustain this impression. 
The eye was not good; it was sly, and he had an 
awkward habit of looking askance. He had the 
fatal defect also of a long upper lip, and his mouth 
was compressed. One can not say of Sir Robert Peel, 
notwithstanding his unrivaled powers of despatching 
affairs, that he was the greatest minister that this 
country ever produced, because, twice placed at the 
helm, and on the second occasion with the Court and 
the Parliament equally devoted to him, he never could 
maintain himself in power. Nor, notwithstanding his 
consummate Parliamentary tactics, can he be de- 
scribed as the greatest party leader that ever flour- 
ished among us, for he contrived to destroy the most 
compact, powerful, and devoted party that ever fol- 
lowed a British statesman. Certainly, notwithstand- 
ing his great sway in debate, we can not recognize 
him as our greatest orator, for in many of the supreme 
requisites of oratory he was singularly deficient. But 
what he really was, and what posterity will acknowl- 

339 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

edge him to have been, is the greatest member of Par- 
liament that ever lived. 

"Peace to his ashes! His name will be often ap- 
pealed to in that scene which he loved so well, and 
never without homage even by his opponents!" 

"I have had great success in society this year. I 
am as popular with the dandies as I was hated by the 
"Ad t " second-rate men. I make my way easily 
in the highest set, where there is no envy, 
malice, etc., and where they like to admire and be 
amused." Thus wrote Disraeli in a Home Letter June 
19, 1834. 

Just as the close borough was made a political ad- 
vantage to the State by the return of young men of 
genius who would not have met at the hands of a 
crowd the recognition they received from a magnate 
— so, too, the great world, set above social strivings, 
was able to take to itself the Alien, and to fear no con- 
sequences. The people in the crowd, the Crokers, the 
Haywards, and the Bullers, had to jostle and push, 
if this young man was to be kept out of the Royal en- 
closure so long as they were not admitted within. Yet 
even among "the great," political and religious, if not 
social, prejudice had to be encountered. "My parents, 
I believe, regarded Dizzy as little better, if better, 
than an adventurer," says Lord Ronald Gower. But 
as he only "thinks," and is not sure, we give that Duke 
and Duchess of Sutherland the benefit of the doubt. 
They were very eager, one may remark, to be his hosts 
in the later years of his life. To Lord Selborne, Dis- 

340 



"ADVENTURER" 

raeli was "an actor in a mask he never took off": what 
lawyers in general, and a certain Lord Chancellor in 
particular, were to Disraeli, has been already set 
forth. If Disraeli did not please the "High," neither 
did he please the "Low," so that Lord Shaftesbury, 
surnamed the "Good," esteemed him "a leper without 
principle, without feeling, without regard to any- 
thing, human or divine, beyond his personal ambition." 
This, too, was the opinion I long ago heard expressed 
in almost similar words by John Bright — the John 
Bright whom Lord Shaftesbury found it disagreeable 
to meet because he was not a gentleman. Here, at 
any rate, in opinion, gentlemanly or not, they did 
meet, and even embrace. Whether Bright, had he 
lived longer, would have been converted to Disraeli, 
may be doubted; but Lord Shaftesbury, introducing a 
deputation of workmen to Lord Beaconsfleld, on his 
elevation, to thank him for his services to Labor dur- 
ing his career in the Lower House of Parliament, 
seemed to be in a softened mood. Disraeli, who had 
once been stung into an allusion to the "phylacteries" 
of Lord Shaftesbury, was of course happy in paying to 
him at last a tribute that takes count of all his virtues 
and ignores all his defects. He, the misunderstood, 
could understand; and ready as men were to misjudge 
him, even more ready was he to forgive. That he felt 
a general soreness, however, about this method of 
prejudicing him, early and late, is certain. 

"Now, gentlemen," he said in 1850, "I have had 
some experience in public life, and during that time 
I have seen a great deal done, and more pretended, by 

341 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

what are called 'morar means; and, bQing naturally 
of a thoughtful temperament, I have been induced to 
analyze what 'moral' means are. I will tell you what 
I have found them to consist of: first, enormous lying; 
second, inexhaustible boasting; third, intense selfish- 
ness." 

The cartoons that illustrated the popular air — and 
that was "adventurer" — in Punch week by week pro- 
duced from him no word except the word that secured 
a pension for the widow of the lampooner. All the 
weary round the legend went. His own uncle, Mr. 
Basevi, the Parliamentary lawyer, utters it under his 
breath; and Medicine chimes in when Sir William Gull 
is asked by somebody at the Athenaeum Club why On 
earth Disraeli should trust himself to the hands of a 
quack (naming a homoeopathic doctor), and the allo- 
path replies: "Similia similihus curanturJ' One need 
not trace the legend further: it had its natural birth 
in an Island that suspects strangers, yet showed itself 
receptive enough in the long run to allow itself to be 
ruled by Disraeli. His own hand has indicated the 
difference between Parisian homage to intellect and 
London's long distrust of it. He knew that wit itself 
is sometimes reckoned an offense. "A great man in 
England is generally the dullest" is his own deliberate 
word. Yet perhaps London, slower than Paris to re- 
ceive, will be slower to forget, and the primrose fes- 
tival may still flourish when the violet festival of Dis- 
raeli's old friend has fallen into disuse. The Tory 
party may be "the stupid party" that Mr. Bright said 
they were, and they might need to be "educated," as 

342 



"ADVENTURER" 

Disraeli said he had educated them to Household Suf- 
frage. All the more may they now put forward their 
claim to receptiveness in the recognition of merit 
where merit was least likely to be apparent to hedge- 
bound eyes. Disraeli overcame all distrust of him as 
an alien. He was the idol of the Tories when he died. 

No doubt the constantly bruited-about story that 
Disraeli began life without political convictions ag- 
gravated the distrust initially felt for an alien. That 
legend dies hard. I take up a recent book of Memoirs, 
those of Sir Edward Blount, who begins a passage 
with the alluring statement, "I knew Disraeli for 
many years." Sir Edward goes on to say that he first 
met the future Prime Minister during the general 
election of 1841, when Disraeli stood for Shrewsbury, 
a town in which Sir Edward's family — the owners of 
Mawley Hall- in Shropshire — took a neighborly in- 
terest. Sir Edward, writing as a Liberal, tells the 
story thus: 

"Disraeli, who had formerly sat for Maidstone, 
was on this occasion returned for Shrewsbury in the 
Liberal interest. The contest had been a particularly 
warm one, and, in order to celebrate our triumph, we 
had a public dinner, with Disraeli in the chair. The 
usual patriotic toasts were followed by that to which 
Disraeli, who was expected to make the speech of the 
evening, was to reply, 'The Members for the County.' 
As soon as the new member was called upon to speak, 
a man in the company rose and got on to the table. 
He spoke violently and in a loud discordant voice, and, 
pointing to the table of honor, at which it happened 

343 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

thirteen were sitting, exclaimed with great heat, 
^Wherever thirteen men sit down to dinner, there is a 
traitor amongst them,' and then with a sudden ges- 
ture of contempt, he turned to the guest of the even- 
ing and added, 'There sits the man!' It is impossible 
for me to describe the commotion which ensued. The 
man was instantly pulled down and expelled igno- 
miniously from the room. Disraeli rose to speak, but 
was powerless to quell the tumult. The turmoil grew 
into an open fight, and the proceedings ended ab- 
ruptly in the utmost confusion. It so happened that 
a very short time afterward Disraeli changed his 
politics and his party, and so the prophecy became 
true." 

The bare fact is that Disraeli stood as a Tory, not 
as a Liberal, for Shrewsbury in 1841, and as a Tory 
was returned, together with Mr. Tomline, Q.C. There 
was a banquet indeed, but it was a Tory banquet, at 
which Mr. Disraeli, cheered to the echo at every point, 
told his supporters that "he had that day had the sat- 
isfaction of writing to Sir Robert Peel to inform him 
that Shrewsbury had done its duty. It would revive 
the hon. baronet's hopes and add to his confidence to 
know the ancient town of Shrewsbury had responded 
to his call." How account for the detailed hallucina- 
tions of that being, beloved of the historian, the eye- 
and ear-witness? One can only surmise, so much non- 
sense being talked about Disraeli in those days, that 
men actually began to believe the stories that passed 
from mouth to mouth; nay, even to think they had 
themselves been present at scenes which never were. 

344 



"ADVENTURER" 

Lady Ashburton used to say that as a child she de- 
clared she remembered being present at her mother's 
wedding; and that, though she was whipped for mak- 
ing the statement, she never ceased to believe it. It 
is equally difficult to divest the Sir Edward Blounts 
in Disraelian annals of the imaginings that make the 
fancy portrait in their own inner minds. 

Kegarding the careers and acts of the politicians 
who preceded, accompanied, and followed Disraeli — 
all the contortions, conversions, and coalitions of 
Burke, Peel, Aberdeen, Palmerston, Stanley, Glad- 
stone, and Chamberlain — we recognize how hard it is 
to affix to the bales of political merchandise the de- 
cisive labels of Whig and Tory, and may well ask with 
Lady Teazle: "Don't you think we might leave con- 
sistency out of the question?" Nature herself is a 
perennial inconsistency. The march of events, the 
growth in the consciousness of the world, the awaken- 
ing of Science and that quick and moving spirit which 
the poets and the thinkers, the seers and the sayers, 
have sent forth; these are forces which can not be 
ignored by any leader of men. By the leader of men, 
moreover, they must be seen and accepted more than 
by his fellows. They must be verified by the experi- 
ences of his own individual growth, transforming 
dream into certainty, theory into conviction. To such 
a man mutation is not tergiversation; development is 
not departure, the step forward — or the step aside, 
at moments the step backward, even a feint of flight — 
is all part of steady spiral progress upward. "Much 
has happened since then" is a colloquialism in which 

345 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

Disraeli flung across the floor of the House of Com- 
mons the burden of his philosophy of political life. 
Disraeli distrusted the morality of people who talked 
of their own mor^l aims. Hence one hesitates to 
claim the Good of the People — the people's health and 
the people's mental, even more than material, prog- 
ress — as the object which Disraeli the publicist kept 
close in view, from the early days of his candidature 
at Wycombe to the last hour of his life. With the 
humbug of hustings speeches in our ears, we pause on 
such facile words: they are murmurs of hypocrisy, 
reminiscent of the fooleries that pass as the accepted 
conventions of that "dull trade" of politics wherever 
the ear of the Islanders in multitude must be flattered 
and tickled. 

To what extent Disraeli consented to play that 
game, to take advantage of ruse and phrase to harass 
or to nonplus his opponents, is an enthralling study 
enough, especially during his mid-career; but it is 
a study that pertains rather to the public life of Eng- 
land than to his own individual history. Party gov- 
ernment was the only instrument to his hand. He 
began with an effort for freedom from party tram- 
mels, and could not find a Nationalist, rather than a 
Whig or a Tory, seat. In his mid-career Disraeli the 
man and cosmopolitan went now and again in the cus- 
tody of Disraeli the leader of Tories who would not, 
perhaps could not, dance at a moment's notice to a 
new piping — some had no ear for music, others did 
not recognize the tune. But if, on the matter of Re- 
form for instance, Disraeli moved slowly, hoping that 

346 



"ADVENTURER" 

the weakest man of his regiment might so keep step, 
and applied his chain of followers to the control of 
social forces with an eye on its weakest link, never 
did he allow party exigency to embarrass his op- 
ponents when England's fame or safety was in ques- 
tion, never in war-time was he other than a Nationalist 
indeed. And this shall be said by any student of the 
half-century of politics his career covers: that his op- 
ponents throughout were cleverer than he at the game 
of bluff; not that they knew the constituencies better, 
but that they were more willing than he to pander to 
popular passions; readier to confuse issues, to play to 
the pocket under guise of feeding the soul, to give high 
names to low motives, to secure a vicious success in 
the name of virtue, to confound a mundane plea with 
a message from heaven, and to adopt toward op- 
ponents in success the bearing of martyrs; in defeat, 
of the Lord's avengers. By these means were com- 
passed his confusion and that of his host, at the close 
of his career. 

Very awkward are the consequences of this form 
of fanaticism in public affairs. "I doubt if any man 
ever lived in this country who was more systematic- 
ally calumniated and misrepresented than Lord Bea- 
consfleld," Lord George Hamilton has said. "It really 
seemed at one time as if there were a conspiracy 
among a certain number of people to misrepresent 
everything he said and to misinterpret everything he 
did. So, little by little, by this dint of constant re- 
iteration, an impression was formed outside, by those 
who did not know Lord Beaconsfield's character, ob- 

347 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

jects, and past career, utterly at variance from truth. 
He was represented as a cynical, reckless man, think- 
ing only of his aggrandizement, and ready for that 
purpose to involve his country in war. I had the 
honor of the most personal acquaintance with him, 
and I can say this truly — that I never met a kinder 
man in private, nor a more patriotic and prescient 
man in his public capacity." 

To a reviewer of Sybil he wrote on June 2, 1845: 
"I was in hopes, all yesterday, that I might have 
"S bi " been able in person to thank you for your 

charming notice of Sybil, so pleasing to 
its author in every respect, and now I fear my visit 
to you must be indefinitely postponed, as, after numer- 
ous miraculous escapes, I am bagged for a Railway 
Committee which has every prospect of sitting every 
day through June and July! 

"Yours faithfully, 

"D." 

"In Sybil; or, The Two Nations, I considered the 
Condition of the People. At that time the Chartist 
agitation was still fresh in the public memory, and its 
repetition was far from improbable. I had mentioned 
to my friend, the late Thomas Buncombe, who was 
my friend before I entered the House of Commons, 
something of what I was contemplating, and he 
offered and obtained for my perusal the whole of the 
correspondence of Feargus O'Connor, when conductor 
of the Northern Star, with the leaders and chief actors 
of the Chartist movement. I had visited and observed 
with care all the localities introduced; and as an 

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351 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

accurate and never exaggerated picture of a remark- 
able period in our domestic history the pages of Sybil 
may, I venture to believe, be consulted with confi- 
dence." 

That was Disraeli's own retrospective glance at a 
book which even those readers who place Tancred or 
Coningsby before it, must allow to be the one that has 
exercised the greatest influence upon the national life. 
In its way it is as autobiographical a book as Contarini 
Fleming; we get at the very heart of Disraeli in it as 
a politician. Among the people of leisure and pleas- 
ure, he, one of themselves, is the pioneer of social re- 
generation — that new birth which aimed at giving to 
all English-born people the opportunity to live de- 
cently. "Talk of heaven, why, you are not fit for 
earth," Thoreau was crying out in New England 
against the desecrators of the mere soil. It was a 
human as well as a physical deformation which manu- 
facturing England had to answer for; and in the case 
of Christians surely it was something more. God is 
our Father; heaven our home; the dearest Christian 
mysteries are associated with maternity, with the love 
of husband and wife, the love proceeding between 
father and son. In simple truth, the ancient Hebrews 
had furnished us with a code of heaven to which mod- 
ern England had lost the key. It did not know these 
things; and not without influence on the vitalizing of 
domesticities, human and divine, was that Hebrew 
tradition which Disraeli inherited, and, in completing 
and supplementing it, did not abandon. Moses, as it 
seemed, found a successor in this modern lawgiver. 

352 



"SYBIL" 

Others, sick at heart at sight of the oppression of the 
Poor, prompted them to rebel; others sought in con- 
fusion, even in social peril, an escape from the thral- 
dom of a life of inaction. His was another role — that 
of teaching the Rich to make restitution; the Poor to 
be powerful in patience. 

"The people are not strong" — this was his social 
creed in the year 1845, the year when Newman was 
putting kindred thoughts of religious concord into 
practise by his accession to the Church of Rome — 
■"the people never can be strong. Their attempts at 
self-vindication will end only in suffering and con- 
fusion. It is civilization that has effected, and is 
effecting, this change. It is that increased knowledge 
of themselves that teaches the educated their social 
duties. There is a dayspring in the history of this 
nation which perhaps those only who are on the moun- 
tain-top can as yet recognize. The new generation of 
the aristocracy of England are not tyrants, nor op- 
pressors. Their intelligence, better than that, their 
hearts, are open to the responsibility of their position. 
But the work that is before them is no holiday work; 
it is not the fever of superficial impulse that can re- 
move the deep-fixed barrier of centuries of ignorance 
and crime. Enough that their sympathies are 
awakened; time and thought will bring the rest. They 
are the natural leaders of the people; believe me, they 
are the only ones." Those awakened sympathies, 
awakened not a moment too soon, were of Disraeli's 
awakening. He roused them from a sleep which was 
nearly that of death. Dives and Lazarus were put 
24 353 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

upon the new terms; and with Dives was the greater 
change; so that now scarce a great family in the land 
but yields, one way or another, a worker for the weak. 
Every village has its Lady Bountiful ; and White- 
chapel itself something more than its amazing 
"Whitechapel Countess" of Mr. Meredith's fiction — a 
Duchess who is daughter to Disraeli's friend Henry 
Hope, and who, in the Commercial Koad, fulfils the 
ambition born in those glades of Deepdene which the 
dedication page of Coningsby commemorates. 

Between that literary dedication and this dedica- 
tion of a life, one delights to trace common aflflnities. 
For it was Disraeli's luck that the men and women 
about him, or their descendants, were raised up to 
translate his words and wishes into deeds. No need 
to name the Rowton Houses, which show how one man 
could provide uncostly but honorable shelter to a vast 
class while Governments and Councils talked of the 
difficulties of doing it. It was Disraeli's friend, the 
Granby of his early letters, who, becoming Duke of 
Rutland, was the earliest of great landowners to give 
tenants that system of Allotments which was to be 
put to practical test again, a generation later, by Dis- 
raeli's neighbors, the Caringtons. There was Lord 
John Manners himself at hand, "the Philip Sidney of 
our generation" in chivalrous outlook on life; one who 
had many thoughts, and all for others; the promoter 
of those National Holidays, denied to him, but granted 
later to men who better understood the commercial 
instincts of the Islanders, and asked in the name of 
the Bankers the boon that was grudged when asked 

354 



"SYBIL" 

in the name of a saint. The passwords of the Count- 
ing House have supplanted those of the Cathedral. 
Lord John, too, was leader of that friendly combat 
between gentle and simple on the cricket ground 
w^hich has since been transformed almost into a Na- 
tional Institution. The Factory Acts were carried by 
such men as these, in the teeth of the manufacturers 
of the Manchester School: were carried by such men 
as Disraeli's friend, Bousfleld Ferrand, the "Tory John 
Bright" as he was called; but John Bright was all 
against the dictation of the State to masters (he, one 
of them) for the regulation of hours of work and ages 
of workers, or for the sheathing of the machinery that 
made mince-meat of their limbs. Let us not suppose 
that selfishness drops off a man like a slough when 
he passes the portals of St. Stephen's. Disraeli, as 
keen to create a Country party that could curb the 
greed of towns as the Manchester School was to get 
cheap bread (and pay lower wages in consequence) 
even at the ruin of the land, went to Manchester, and 
there learned the lesson that may be familiar enough 
now, but was new to those who were witnesses to the 
mushroom rise of towns sown over England by ma- 
chinery, the steam-engine most of all. And the men- 
tion of towns reminds us that, in a later generation, 
Disraeli's own Lothair set the example of civic ser- 
vice, planning his town of Cardiff on a system, and 
wearing the mayoral robes and the chain of office 
(chased under his own eye) — the first of the "gentle- 
men" who, as Disraeli said, had no claim to exist ex- 
cept as leaders of the people. 

355 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

Sybil; or, The Two Natiofis, was published in 1845, 
its motto a sentence from Bishop Latimer in reproach 
of the classes: "The- Commonalty murmured and said, 
'There never were so many gentlemen and so little 
gentleness.' " It was dated "May Day" — a date with 
a reminiscence in it — and from Grosvenor Gate, with- 
in sight of all that is brilliant in the beginnings of a 
London season. It made its appeal, not to the talking 
politician, not to the smart reviewer; it was not in 
touch at all with the trade of politics. But it went, 
where Mrs. Browning's Cry of the Children went, to 
the heart of the amateur; and may be said to have 
sown the seed which, a generation later, was to yield 
an abundant harvest in the gentleness of the pros- 
perous toward the dependent. But how to get men 
to hear the new social evangel? Any one versed in the 
memoirs of the time remembers what deaf ears men 
had for all they did not want to hear; a halter or a 
manacle were Park Lane's machinery for dealing 
with popular discontent under difficulties facing men 
from the growth of population, the rise of the towns, 
the great inventions and movements that superseded 
manual toil and feudal conditions. Disraeli, if any 
one, could get a hearing from those dull ears; he knew 
the knack; this blue-book of his was to lie on every 
table in Park Lane; and where it then lay it lies even 
to this hour. 

The novel opens on the eve of the Derby in the 
inaugural Victorian year (1837), and- the scene is "a 
vast and golden saloon that, in its splendor, would 
not have disgraced Versailles in the days of the Grand 

356 



"SYBIL" 

Monarch." The club men are betting on the morrow's 
event as they "consume delicacies for which they have 
no appetite." "I rather like bad wine," said Mr. 
Mountchesney; "one gets so bored with good wine." 
"I never go anywhere," pleads a "melancholy Cupid," 
when asked if he has come from a visit. "Everything 
bores me so," he adds in explanation. To an invitation 
to join an open-air Derby party — it will "do him good," 
his proposing host suggests — he replies: "Nothing 
could do me good: I should be quite content if any- 
thing could do me harm." Still applicable also is the 
more formal indictment of those who, possessing all 
things, have no joy in any; and, needing nothing, need 
all. "They go about from place to place, seeking for 
some new pleasure. They are weary, but it is with 
the weariness of satiety." That protest of Mr. Bright 
against these Splendid Paupers in life's real riches 
was addressed to — artisans. It was intended to at- 
tack a class behind its back, not to admonish it to its 
face. "There is in the midst of us a general popula- 
tion of the poor — I make the acknowledgment with 
shame and sorrow. In no other country can be found 
such — I will not call them homes, I will not call them 
dwelling-places, for they are not fit for human habita- 
tion; but hovels in which whole families dwell to- 
gether, in the corner of a room — such places exist 
under the eaves of our palaces, from the roofs of which 
the rain drips upon the roofs covering a population 
sunk in the depths of physical suffering." That is 
Cardinal Manning's version of Disraeli's "The dun- 
geon or the den still in courtesy called home"; but the 

357 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

Cardinal addresses only a congregation in a Church, 
already informed, if not already convinced. The polit- 
ical economist got hardly a better hearing. "I always 

vote against that d d 'Intellect,' " said a typical 

Belgravian, when John Stuart Mill stood for West- 
minster. But Disraeli's mission was direct — to teach 
the whole wealthy class its duty to its neighbor; the 
duty of one nation to another. The novel was a means 
far better suited to that end than the philippic, the 
sermon, the treatise. Literary triflers might call the 
Disraelian novel a tract. Certainly; that was its 
glory. The novel with a purpose was a Tract for the 
Time; and it got home. The jam was swallowed and 
the powder with it, and the body politic knows the 
difference, though the cure be only partial yet. 

The powder, rather than the preserve, is our con- 
cern — as it is still England's. The village of Marney, 
delightfully situated in spreading dales, flanked by 
lofty hills, is represented to us by Disraeli as a beau- 
tiful illusion. "Behind that laughing landscape, 
penury and disease fed upon the vitals of a miserable 
population." At the great house, robbed by his an- 
cestor from the monks, and therefore from the Poor 
— (that is a great point always with Disraeli, and 
sometimes was a sore one with the magnates whom 
he visited in their alienated Church properties) — all 
was gorgeous as it was dull. Lord Marney glorified 
the new Poor Law, and opined that Peel would stand 
by his class — Lord Marney, whose face was the index 
of his mind, "cynical, devoid of sentiment, arrogant, 
literal, hard," a man of no imagination who "had ex- 

358 



"SYBIL" 

hausted his slight native feeling, but was acute, dis- 
putatious,, and firm even to obstinacy"; a disciple of 
Helvetius, and one "who always gave you in the busi- 
ness of life the idea of a man who was conscious you" 
(especially, perhaps, if "you" were an alien Disraeli) 
"were trying to take him in, and rather respected you 
for it, but the working of whose cold, unkind eye 
defied you." 

Into the gallery of Disraeli's peers and peeresses 
go Lord and Lady Marney. Sketches they are; but, 
like the sketches of a great artist, they are finished at 
the fleetest touch. "Completion" would be super- 
fluity: a wanton waste. The "trick" of such portrai- 
ture is sometimes said to be easy; yet few have per- 
formed it successfully, and none, perhaps, quite so 
successfully as Disraeli. Lord Marney as a landlord 
shall have the first sitting. "I wish," he says to his 
brother Egremont, who hints at the horrible poverty 
of the tenantry — "I wish the people were as well off 
in every part of the country as they are on my estate. 
They get here their eight shillings a week, always at 
least seven, and every hand is at this moment in em- 
ploy, except a parcel of scoundrels who prefer wood- 
stealing and poaching, and would, if you gave them 
double the wages. The rate of wages is nothing: cer- 
tainty is the thing; and every man at Marney may be 
sure of his seven shillings a week — for at least nine 
months of the year; and, for the other three, they can 
go to the House, and a very proper place for them; it 
is heated with hot air and has every comfort. Even 
Marney Abbey is not heated with hot air. I have often 

359 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

thought of it; it makes me mad sometimes to think 
of those lazy, pampered menials passing their lives 
with their backs to a great roaring fire; but I am 
afraid of the flues." The satire is essential; it has 
roots; it shoots up and it intertwines, as complex as 
character itself; you read it between the letters rather 
than between the lines. 

Disraeli does not seek to persuade his readers that 
a bad landlord can be a good man. Men do not gather 
figs of thistles, as he once said, when somebody com- 
plained of the gaucherie of a Knight of the Thistle. In 
his relations with his younger brother Egremont 
(whom the peer introduces to an heiress as his own 
contribution toward the election bills incurred by the 
commoner's return for the family borough), we get a 
study of the selfishness of that seniority which counts 
for so much in a country favoring primogeniture. And 
when you come closer and get the bad landlord before 
you as a husband, you have only this relief — that the 
Wife and Martyr (a combination to which scant recog- 
nition has been accorded in the Church of so many 
Virgins and Martyrs) has the halo true men ever see 
her wear in real life; and this must be her consolation 
— that Disraeli saw it there and did homage accord- 
ingly: 

"Arabella was a woman of abilities, which she had 
cultivated. She had excellent sense, and possessed 
many admirable qualities; she was far from being 
devoid of sensibility; but her sweet temper shrank 
from controversy, and Nature had not endowed her 
with a spirit which could direct and control. She 

360 



"SYBIL " 

yielded without a struggle to the arbitrary will and 
unreasonable caprice of a husband, who was scarcely 
her equal in intellect, and far her inferior in all the 
genial qualities of our nature, but who governed her 
by his iron selfishness. Lady Marney absolutely had 
no will of her own. A hard, exact, literal, bustling, 
acute being environed her existence; directed, 
planned, settled everything. Her life was a series of 
petty sacrifices and balked enjoyments. If her car- 
riage were at the door, she was never certain that she 
would not have to send it away; if she had asked some 
friends to her house, the chances were she would have 
to put them off; if she was reading a novel, Lord 
Marney asked her to copy a letter; if she were going 
to the opera, she found that Lord Marney had got 
seats for her and some friend in the House of Lords, 
and seemed expecting the strongest expressions of de- 
light and gratitude from her for his unasked and in- 
convenient kindness. Lady Marney had struggled 
against this tyranny in the earlier days of their union. 
Innocent, inexperienced Lady Marney! As if it were 
possible for a wife to contend against a selfish hus- 
band, at once sharp-witted and blunt-hearted. She 
had appealed to him, she had even reproached him; 
she had wept, once she had knelt. But Lord Marney 
looked upon these demonstrations as the disordered 
sensibility of a girl unused to the marriage state, and 
ignorant of the wise authority of husbands, of which 
he deemed himself a model. And so, after a due 
course of initiation — Lady Marney invisible for days, 
plunged in remorseful reveries in the mysteries of her 

361 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

boudoir, and her lord dining at his club and going to 
the minor theaters — the countess was broken in, and 
became the perfect wife of a perfect husband." 

During a London season, at a great party at Delo- 
raine House, one of those brilliant generalities that 
are made up of individual dulnesses, we encounter 
Lord and Lady Marney again: 

"Where is Arabella?" inquired Lord Marney of his 
mother. "I want to present young Huntingford to 
her. He can be of great use to me, but he bores me 
so, I can not talk to him. I want to present him to 
Arabella." 

In the Blue Drawing-Room she is found. " 'Well,' 
says her husband, in concession to his wife's momen- 
tary reluctance to leave agreeable friends, 'I will 
bring Huntingford here. Mind you speak to him a 
great deal; take his arm, and go down to supper with 
him if you can. He is a very nice sensible young fel- 
low, and you will like him very much, I am sure; a 
little shy at first, but he only wants bringing out' — 
dexterous description of one of the most unlicked and 
unlickable cubs that ever entered society with forty 
thousand a year; courted by all, and with just that 
degree of cunning that made him suspicious of every 
attention." This second allusion to the stand-off 
egotism of a "noble" seems again to admit us to a 
glimpse of early Disraelian autobiography. 

The Earl of Marney, who hated nothing so much 
as a poacher except a lease, extended his table hos- 
pitality to Slimsy, the vicar of the parish, a model 
priest because he left everybody alone. Once, indeed, 

362 




THE MONUMENT IN THE GUILDHALL. 
Designed by R. Belt, 1882. 



" SYBIL " 

under the influence of Lady Marney, there was a 
threatened ebullition of zeal — new schools and tracts 
were talked of. But Lord Marney stopped all this. 
"No priestcraft at Marney," said this gentle proprietor 
of abbey lands. 

From the peer we pass to the baronet — Sir Vava- 
sour Firebrace, who buttonholes everybody about the 
grievances of an order he is delighted later to desert 
for a barony: an Islander without guile — all folly: 

"If the [new] Sovereign could only know her best 
friends," he said to Egremont, Lord Marney's younger 
brother (a Young Englander in politics, and generally 
said to have had Disraeli himself for his prototype), 
"she might yet rally round the throne a body of 
men " Lord Marney makes a move from the din- 
ner-table to interrupt the stale theme; for a bore who 
is a bully is ever intolerant of that less pestilent person 
— a bore who is a goose. But bores, one sort or an- 
other, are not so easily burked; and Egremont, in the 
drawing-room, had again to listen, astonished, to the 
excited recapitulation of the possible glories of the 
baronetcy, while the Bloody Hand was laid retain- 
ingly upon his arm. "And such a body," exclaimed 
Sir Vavasour with animation. "Picture us going 
down in procession to Westminster to hold a chapter. 
Five or six hundred baronets in dark-green costume — 
the appropriate dress of equites aurati, each, not only 
with his badge, but with his collar of S.S., belted and 
scarfed; his star glittering; his pennon flying; his hat 
white, with a plume of white feathers; of course the 
sword and the gilt spurs. In one hand — the thumb 

363 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

ring and the signet not forgotten — we hold our coro- 
net of two balls." 

The satire does not really border on burlesque, it 
is still within the safe precincts of human fatuity, 
when Sir Vavasour goes on to describe "the body evi- 
dently destined to save this country" as "blending all 
sympathies — the Crown, of which they are the pecu- 
liar champions; the nobles, of whom tHey are the 
popular branch; the people, who recognize in them 
their natural leaders." The illusion of caste is por- 
trayed alike in Marney and in Firebrace. Men go to 
public schools to get rid of the caste-consciousness; 
and we know how some of them come through the 
purgation with no trace of purification. By their posi- 
tion, by the power of isolation which wealth and 
station give, and the spoken and looked politeness 
which these commonly extort, the Marneys and Fire- 
braces go immune. Disraeli followed them up; he 
opened the eyes of their sons; and if the bores of to- 
day, still as plentiful as rabbits in Australia, at least 
begin to be kept somewhat under, the remission is due 
in great measure to the sport Disraeli made of them 
in the books he wrote — and they read. This, as all 
will admit, is no slight benefaction; but it is to a yet 
more vital one that we turn in this tale of Sybil, the 
daughter of Gerard, Chartist and artisan. 

How fared the hamlet gathered round Marney 
Abbey, how its habitants? "Marney mainly consist- 
ed of a variety of narrow and crowded lanes formed 
by cottages built of rubble or of unhewn stones with- 
out cement, looking as if they could hardly hold to- 

364 



"SYBIL" 

gether. The gaping chinks admitted every blast; the 
leaning chimneys had lost half their original height; 
the rotten rafters were evidently misplaced; while in 
many instances the thatch, utterly unfit for its orig- 
inal purpose of giving protection from the weather, 
looked more like the top of a dunghill than a cottage. 
Before the doors of these dwellings, and often sur- 
rounding them, ran open drains full of animal and 
vegetable refuse, decomposing into disease, while a 
concentrated solution of every species of dissolving 
filth was allowed to soak through and thoroughly im- 
pregnate the walls and ground adjoining. These 
wretched tenements" — continues a passage which 
may, with other passages like it, be taken as im- 
portant documents bearing on the pedigree of to-day's 
Sanitary Inspectors and County Councils — "seldom 
consisted of more than two rooms, in one of which the 
whole family, however numerous, were obliged to 
sleep, without distinction of age, or sex, or suffering. 
With the water streaming down the walls, the light 
distinguished through the roof, with no hearth even 
in winter, the virtuous mother in the sacred pangs of 
childbirth gives forth another victim to our thought- 
less civilization, surrounded by three generations 
whose inevitable presence is more painful than her 
sufferings in that hour of travail : while the father of 
her coming child, in another corner of the sordid 
chamber, lies stricken by that typhus which his con- 
taminating dwelling has breathed into his veins, and 
for whose next prey is perhaps destined his new-born 
child. These swarming walls had neither windows 

365 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

nor doors sufficient to keep out the weather, or admit 
the sun or supply the means of ventilation — the hu- 
mid and putrid roof of thatch exhaling malaria like 
all other decaying vegetable matter. The dwelling- 
rooms were neither boarded nor paved; and whether 
it were that some were situate in low and damp 
places, occasionally flooded by the river, and usually 
much below the level of the road; or that the springs, 
as was often the case, would burst through the mud 
floor; the ground was at no time better than so much 
clay, while sometimes you might see little channels 
cut from the center under the doorways to carry off 
the water, the door itself removed from its hinges; 
a resting place for infancy in its deluged home. These 
hovels were in many instances not provided with the 
commonest conveniences of the rudest police; con- 
tiguous to every door might be observed the dungheap 
on which every kind of filth was accumulated, for the 
purpose of being disposed of for manure, so that, when 
the poor man opened his narrow habitation in the 
hope of refreshing it with the breeze of summer, he 
was met with a mixture of gases from reeking dung- 
hills." 

The average term of life in that manufacturing dis- 
trict was seventeen; more than half the children 
went out of their misery before they were five; they 
came unwelcome and they went unwept. There was 
little to distinguish human beings from brutes; in 
many respects the brutes had the advantage. "The 
domestic principle waxes weaker and weaker every 
year in England; nor can we wonder at it, when there 

366 



"SYBIL" 

is no comfort to cheer and no sentiment to hallow the 
home." The Abbey people and the Town people — 
these are the Two Nations, the Rich and the Poor. Let 
us fix the time — it was the beginning of that Victorian 
era which spells so much that history calls glory. 
Memorable, and helping us to remember seasons, is a 
passage in this very book: "In a palace in a garden,^ 
not in a haughty keep, proud with the fame but dark 
with the violence of ages, — not in a regal pile, bright 
with splendor, but soiled with the intrigues of courts 
and factions; in a palace in a garden, meet scene for 
youth and innocence and beauty, came the voice that 
told the maiden she must ascend the throne." 

Disraeli can not get away from the evolution of 
things; he is of the past and of the future as well as 
of the present, an "all-round man"; no provincial, nor 
a victim to that twin limitation of time rather than 
place — no mere opportunist or temporizer, in a new 
and needed sense of those words. Looking backward, 
then, Disraeli saw the Abbey, and associated its ruins 
with the ruined cottages of the peasants. "The eyes 
of this unhappy race might have been raised to the 
solitary spire that sprang up in the midst of them, the 
bearer of present consolation, the harbinger of future 
equality; but Holy Church at Marney had forgotten 
her sacred mission." Candles were no longer lighted 
on its altars; instead, as Disraeli saw, hay-ricks wete 
set ablaze outside by incendiary hands. 

"Over a space of not less than ten acres might still 
be observed the fragments of the great Abbey: these 
were, toward their limit, in general moss-grown and 

367 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

moldering memorials that told where once rose the 
offices and spread the terraced gardens of the old pro- 
prietors; here might still be traced the dwelling of 
the Lord Abbot; and there, still more distinctly, be- 
cause built on a greater scale and of materials still 
more intended for perpetuity, the capacious hospital, 
a name that did not then denote the dwelling of dis- 
ease, but a place where all the rights of hospitality 
were practised; where the traveler, from the proud 
baron to the lonely pilgrim, asked the shelter and the 
succor that never was denied, and at whose gate, 
called the Portal of the Poor, the peasants on the Ab- 
bey lands, if in want, might appeal each morn and 
night for raiment and for food. But it was in the 
center of the tract of ruins, occupying a space of not 
less than two acres, that, with a strength that had 
defied time, with a beauty that had at last turned 
away the wrath of man" (I think nobody could say that 
quite so well), "still rose if not in perfect, yet admira- 
ble, form and state, one of the noblest achievements 
of Christian art — the Abbey church. The summer 
vault was now its only roof, and all that remained of 
its gorgeous windows was the vastness of their arched 
symmetry, and some wreathed relics of their fantastic 
framework, but the rest was uninjured. From the 
west window, looking over the transept chapel of the 
Virgin, still adorned with pillars of marble and ala- 
baster, the eye wandered down the nave to the great 
orient light, a length of nearly three hundred feet, 
through a gorgeous avenue of unshaken walls and 
columns that clustered to the skies. On each side of 

368 



" SYBIL " 

the Lady Chapel rose a tower. One which was of 
great antiquity, being of that style which is commonly 
called Norman, short and very thick and square, did 
not mount much above the height of the western 
front; but the other tower was of a character very 
different. It was tall and light, and of a Gothic style 
most pure and graceful; the stone of which it was 
built, of a bright and even sparkling color, and looking 
as if it were hewn but yesterday. At first, its tur- 
reted crest seemed injured; but the truth is, it was 
unfinished; the workmen were busied on this very 
tower the day that old Baldwin Greymount came as 
the king's commissioner to inquire into the conduct 
of this religious house. The Abbots loved to memorize 
their reigns by some public work, which should add 
to the beauty of their buildings or the convenience of 
their subjects: and the last of the ecclesiastical lords 
of Marney, a man of fine taste and a skilful architectj 
was raising this new belfry for his brethren when the 
stern decree arrived that the bells should no more 
sound. And the hymn was no more to be chanted in 
the Lady Chapel; and the candles were no more to be 
lit on the high altar; and the gate of the poor was to 
be closed forever; and the wanderer was no more to 
find a home. 

"The body of the church was in many parts over- 
grown with brambles and in all covered with a rank 
vegetation. It had been a very sultry day, and the 
blaze of the meridian heat still inflamed the air; the 
kine, for shelter rather than for sustenance, had wan- 
dered through some broken arches, and were lying in 
25 369 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

the shadow of the nave. This desecration of a spot, 
once sacred, still beautiful and solemn, jarred on the 
feelings of Egremont. He sighed and turning away, 
followed a path that after a few paces led him into 
the cloister garden." 

It is here, on more than neutral ground, that, 
meetly enough, Egremont the young legislator en- 
counters Sybil and her father. Catholics and Chartists. 
Caste ceases upon consecrated ground. That is the 
lesson underlying a chapter saying otherwise many 
a true thing that in 1845 was also a new thing about 
the monks. "Their history has been written by their 
enemies," is a sentence not without an application to 
Disraeli's own. When Egremont, speaking by rote, 
refers to the fat abbacies which fell to the share of 
younger sons, he is told by Gerard, "Well, if we must 
have an aristocracy, I would sooner that its younger 
branches should be monks and nuns than Colonels 
without regiments or housekeepers of Eoyal palaces 
that exist only in name." As for other palaces, "Try 
to imagine," says Gerard, "the effect of thirty or forty 
Chatsworths in this county, the proprietors of which 
were never absent. You complain enough now of ab- 
sentees. The monks were never non-resident. They 
expended their revenue among those whose labor had 
produced it. These holy men built and planted for 
posterity; their churches were cathedrals; their 
schools colleges; their woods and waters, their farms 
and gardens were laid out on a scale and in a spirit 
that are now extinct; they made the country beautiful, 
and the people proud of their country. The monas- 

370 



" SYBIL " 

teries were taken by storm. Never was sucli a 
plunder. It was worse than the Norman Conquest; 
nor has England ever lost this character of ravage. 
I don't know whether the Union Workhouses will re- 
move it. After an experiment of three centuries, your 
jails being full, and your treadmills losing some- 
thing of their virtue, you have given us a substitute 
for the monasteries." It is the doctrine that Cobbett 
also was proclaiming — an adventure to deaf ears. 
And another of Sybil's associates spoke: "As for com- 
munity, with the monasteries expired the only type 
that we ever had in England of such an intercourse. 
There is no community in England: there is aggrega- 
tion, but aggregation under circumstances that make 
it rather a dissociating than a uniting principle." 

The intelligent sympathy which Disraeli, here 
again a pioneer, brought to bear on the Old Keligion, 
and even on some of its modern professors, is illus- 
trated in other books beside Sybil. May Dacre, the 
heroine of The Young Duke, is one such; Contarini 
Fleming, Disraeli's alter ego in so much, becomes a con- 
vert in youth, and Nigel Penruddock in Endymion in 
maturer age; Eustace de Lyle, a pre-Newmanic con- 
vert to the Roman Catholic religion while he was still 
an Eton boy, in real life Ambrose de Lisle, of Garen- 
don, is given as the best type of squire; and Mr. Traf- 
ford is shown as a model manufacturer who housed 
his people, provided them with recreation-grounds 
and baths, cared and spent for their health and their 
goodness, feeling "that between them should be other 
ties than the payment and the receipt of wages." 

371 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

Lothair, with its less grave representatives of the Old 
Religion, depicts that Society Catholicism, the exist- 
ence of which only ignorance will deny, and over which 
Cardinal Manning wept while Disraeli, with a rather 
like intent, laughed. "The human spirit reigns over 
Christian Society, If this were not so, London could 
never be as it is at this day. And how to deal with it? 
Certainly not with the pieties of our Upper Ten Thou- 
sand nor with the devotion of the Faubourg St. Ger- 
main." These words of the Cardinal's might stand on 
the title-page of Lothair. All the same they were writ- 
ten by a Churchman who desired that the Church 
should unify the nation and the nations. The Holy 
Ghost was to him the Dove bearing a social olive 
branch — its only bearer; and it is worth a passing note 
that, of the persons named earlier in this chapter as 
putting into practise Disraelian ideas — the Dowager 
Duchess of Newcastle, Sir Philip Rose, and the Mar- 
quis of Bute, no less than Manning himself — became 
enthusiastic adherents of the Roman Catholic Church, 
which is, as some one in Sybil says, "to be respected 
as the only Hebrew-Christian Church extant — all 
other Churches established by the Hebrew Apostles 
have disappeared, but Rome remains." 

And one hears in the Sibylline pages not only the 
voice that was to be Manning's, but at times that also 
which was to be Ruskin's. "The least picturesque of 
all creations," a railway station, is pitted, in shame, 
against a monastery. And of Mowbray, the seat of 
the Fitz Warenes (descended ignobly, like so many of 
the Peers in Disraeli's Gallery — Fitz Warene himself 

372 



«' SYBIL" 

from a St. James's Street waiter): "Oh, it is very 
grand, but, like all places in the manufacturing dis- 
tricts, very disagreeable. You never have a clear sky. 
Your toilette-table is covered with blacks; the deer in 
the park seem as if they had bathed in a lake of Indian 
ink; and as for the sheep, you expect to see chimney- 
sweeps for the shepherds not duchesses as in a Wat- 
teau." The esthetic, the political, the religious move- 
ments, were under different captains, were even un- 
aware of their nearness to each other, but all, seen 
at dispassionate distance, converged one way. 

The scene at the Temple, the cheap restaurant in 
a manufacturing town to which fatherless and un- 
christened Devilsdust takes his two mill ladies, Miss 
Caroline and Miss Harriet, is familiar. Some of the 
old salt has gone from the narrative now, the town 
"pleasures" of the people surprise no longer; the cos- 
termonger has his theater and his club like any lord, 
the same theater — why not? — and (if he gets enough 
money) the same club. But there is other grime than 
that on the lady's toilette-table; a darkness of the pit, 
that Disraeli set out to disperse. The colliery village 
occupies his pen at the beginning of the Third Book of 
Sybil : 

"It was the twilight hour; the hour at which in 
southern climes the peasant kneels before the sunset 
image of the blessed Hebrew maiden; when caravans 
halt in their long course over vast deserts, and the 
turbaned traveler, bending in the sand, pays his 
homage to the sacred stone and the sacred city; the 
hour, not less holy, that announces the cessation of 

373 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

English toil, and sends forth the miner and the collier 
to breathe the air of earth, and gaze on the light of 
heaven. They come forth: the mine delivers its gang 
and the pit its bondsmen; the forge is silent and the 
engine is still. The plain is covered with the swarm- 
ing multitude: bands of stalwart men, broad-chested 
and muscular, wet with toil, and black as the children 
of the tropics; troops of youth — alas of both sexes — 
though neither their raiment nor their language indi- 
cates the difference; all are clad in male attire; and 
oaths that men might shudder at, issue from lips born 
to breathe words of sweetness. Yet these are to be — 
some are — the mothers of England. But can we won- 
der at the hideous coarseness of their language when 
we remember the savage rudeness of their lives? 
Naked to the waist, an iron chain fastened to a belt 
of leather runs between their legs clad in canvas 
trousers, while on hands and feet an English girl, for 
twelve, sometimes for sixteen hours a day, hauls and 
hurries tubs of coals up subterranean roads, dark, pre- 
cipitous, and plashy: circumstances that seem to have 
escaped the notice of the Society for the Abolition of 
Negro Slavery. Those worthy gentlemen too appear 
to have been singularly unconscious of the sufferings 
of the little Trappers, which was remarkable, as many 
of them were in their own employ. See too these 
emerge from the bowels of the earth. Infants of four 
and five years of age, many of them girls, pretty and 
still soft and timid; entrusted with the fulfilment of 
most responsible duties, and the nature of which en- 
tails on them the necessity of being the earliest to 

374 



"SYBIL" 

enter the mine and the latest to leave it. Their labor 
indeed is not severe, for that would be impossible, but 
it is passed in darkness and in solitude. They endure 
that punishment which philosophical philanthropy 
has invented for the direst criminals, and which those 
criminals deem more terrible than the death for which 
it is substituted. Hour after hour elapses, and all 
that reminds the infant Trappers of the world they 
have quitted and that which they have joined, is the 
passage of the coal-wagons for which they open the 
air-doors of the galleries, and on keeping which doors 
constantly closed, except at this moment of passage, 
the safety of the mine and the lives of the persons em- 
ployed in it entirely depend. Sir Joshua, a man of 
genius and a courtly artist, struck by the seraphic 
countenance of Lady Alice Gordon, when a child of 
very tender years, painted the celestial visage in va- 
rious attitudes on the same canvas, and styled the 
group of heavenly faces — guardian angels." 

Country cottages have been described; the dwell- 
ers of the towns were not less basely housed. Wod- 
gate has the appearance of "a vast squalid suburb." 
"It is rare to meet with a young person who knows 
his own age, rarer to find the boy who has seen a book 
or the girl who has seen a flower." Asked the name 
of their religion, the people reply by a stare and a 
laugh; and they live in "long lines of little dingy tene- 
ments, with infants lying about the road." That civic 
life, which Disraeli the novelist now mourned over in 
absence, and which Disraeli the politician was to do 
so much to foster, was not yet brought to birth: 

375 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

"There were no public buildings of any sort; no 
churches, chapels, town-hall, institute, theater; and 
the principal streets in the heart of the town in which 
were situate the coarse and grimy shops, though 
formed by houses of a greater elevation than the pre- 
ceding, were equally narrow and if possible more 
dirty. At every fourth or fifth house, alleys seldom 
above a yard wide, and streaming with filth, opened 
out of the street. These were crowded with dwellings 
of various size, while from the principal court often 
branched out a number of smaller alleys or rather 
narrow passages, than which nothing can be conceived 
more close and squalid and obscure. Here during the 
days of business, the sound of the hammer and file 
never ceased, amid gutters of abomination and piles 
of foulness and stagnant pools of filth; reservoirs of 
leprosy and plague, whose exhalations were suflflcient 
to taint the atmosphere of the whole kingdom and 
fill the country with fever and pestilence. A lank and 
haggard youth, rickety and smoke-dried, and black 
with his craft, was sitting on the threshold of a mis- 
erable hovel and working at the file. Before him 
stood a stunted and meager girl, with a back like a 
grasshopper; a deformity occasioned by the displace- 
ment of the blade-bone, and prevalent among the girls 
of Wodgate from the cramping posture of their usual 
toil." 

The story of the Truck system is told — the pay- 
ment of wages in fourth-rate food, under conditions of 
fatigue, and at the hands of bestial bullies. To an on- 
looker like I^israeli, with the Sanitary laws of Moses 

376 




THE MONUMENT IN PARLIAMENT SQUARE. 



"SYBIL" 

in his brain, the savagery of the Islanders must have 
seemed complete; an onlooker, impartial, to some ex- 
tent impassive, even here. The alien in him turned an 
impartial eye on rich and poor alike; and the ad- 
vantage of the attitude explains to us why all great 
artists have to be aliens in one way or another. It 
was not worth Disraeli's while to be a partizan; he 
presents to us debauched Simon Halton as well as 
selfish Lord Marney; shows the same jealousies among 
the National Delegates as those that eat out the 
hearts of Cabinet Ministers. Chartists conspire in the 
inn parlor while an aristocratic cabal meets in a St. 
James's Square drawing-room to wrest by safe and 
calculated intrigue from ministers the promotion 
which was the price of their support. The book be- 
gins, proceeds, and closes without an illusion; and is 
yet a book big with purpose. Above all, in SyUl, doe» 
Disraeli make war upon the claims of aristocrats to 
rule by right of their station. Almost to a man, they 
are fools or knaves; nothing is left them in their 
nakedness when even their pedigrees crumble beneath 
his inquisition, the fig-leaves fall from the family-tree. 
It was, perhaps, a final sop to the libraries to let Sybil, 
the daughter of the people, end as a baroness in her 
own right: the ancient authors of the Book of Job 
made a similar concession — Job gets his prosperity 
again. Again, the incidents of the attack of Mowbray 
Castle by the mob are not perhaps overdrawn in them- 
selves; but as a means to an end, that end being the 
recovery of papers that will prove Sybil's nobility of 
birth, they tend to the extravagant. The killing of 

377 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

Lord Marney so that Egremont may succeed him, and 
the killing of Gerard to rid Egremont, marrying 
Gerard's daughter Sybil, of a difflcult father-in-law — 
these are felt to be flaws in the novelist's work of art; 
death is too easy a solution of his difficulties to be one 
worthy of his closing with it. Indeed the book ends 
abruptly; and it ends, from the story point of view, 
exactly where one wants it to go on, A picture of 
Sybil (one hopes Egremont persuaded her to spell her 
name Sibyl) as mistress of Marney and lover of the 
poor would not have been beyond Disraeli's powers, 
with his intimate understanding of cottage and hall. 
Elsewhere in literature, though not in life, we look in 
vain for a modern Lady of Burleigh who, milkmaid 
reared, does not "droop" under "the burden of an hon- 
or" acquired by marriage. Disraeli had instincts more 
humane; he did not look at life — at tbe Hall — from 
the confines of a village rectory or the enclosure of a 
petty squire's walls. 

The question remains — was all the emotion of this 
book, the most Radical that even Disraeli ever wrote, 
to evaporate in the Senate, or was he to put upon the 
Statute Book, or to help others to put there, that 
charter of liberty which grew under his pen at Gros- 
venor Gate? He, indeed, expected us, when we set 
down his book, to put him to the test. In a final 
passage, he alludes to his own Parliamentary posi- 
tion; a passage which those who have here followed 
his earliest speeches will best understand. Thirteen 
years have gone; but the hustings sentiments of 1832 
are reproduced and expanded in the novel of 1845: 

378 



"SYBIL" 

"And thus I conclude the last page of a work, 
which though its form be light and unpretending, 
would yet aspire to suggest to its readers some con- 
siderations of a very opposite character. A year ago, 
I presumed to offer to the public some volumes that 
aimed to call their attention to the state of our polit- 
ical parties; their origin, their history, their present 
position. In an age of political infidelity, of mean 
passions and petty thoughts, I would have impressed 
upon the rising race not to despair, but to seek in a 
right understanding of the history of their country 
and in the energies of heroic youth — the elements of 
national welfare. The present work advances another 
step in the same emprise. From the state of Parties 
it now would draw public thought to the state of the 
People whom those parties for two centuries have 
governed. The comprehension and the cure of this 
greater theme depend upon the same agencies as the 
first: it is the past alone that can explain the present, 
and it is youth that alone can mold the remedial fu- 
ture. The written history of our country for the last 
ten reigns has been a mere phantasma; given to the 
origin and consequence of public transactions a char- 
acter and color in every respect dissimilar with their 
natural form and hue. In this mighty mystery all 
thoughts and things have assumed an aspect and title 
contrary to their real quality and style: Oligarchy has 
been called Liberty; an exclusive Priesthood has been 
christened a National Church; Sovereignty has been 
the title of something that has had no dominion, while 
absolute power has been wielded by those who profess 

379 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

themselves the servants of the people. In the selfish 
strife of factions two great existences have been 
blotted out of the history of England — the Monarch 
and the Multitude; as the power of the Crown has 
diminished, the privileges of the people have disap- 
peared; till at length the scepter has become a pag- 
eant, and its subject has degenerated again into a 
serf. It is nearly fourteen years ago, in the popular 
frenzy of a mean and selfish revolution which neither 
emancipated the Crown nor the People, that I first 
took the occasion to intimate and then to develop to 
the first assembly of my countrymen that I ever had 
the honor to address, these convictions. They have 
been misunderstood as is ever for a season the fate of 
Truth, and they have obtained for their promulgator 
much misrepresentation, as must ever be the lot of 
those who will not follow the beaten track of a falla- 
cious custom. But Time, that brings all things, has 
brought also to the mind of England some suspicion 
that the idols they have so long worshiped and the 
oracles that have so long deluded them are not the 
true ones. There is a whisper rising in this country 
that Loyalty is not a phrase. Faith not a delusion, 
and Popular Liberty something more diffusive and 
substantial than the profane exercise of the sacred 
rights of sovereignty by political classes. That we 
may live to see England once more possess a free Mon- 
archy and a privileged and prosperous People, is my 
prayer; that these great consequences can only be 
brought about by the energy and devotion of our 
Youth is my persuasion. We live in an age when to- 

380 



I 



-ONE OF MY OLDEST FRIENDS" 

be young and to be indiifferent can be no longer syn- 
onymous. We must prepare for the coming hour. 
The claims of the Future are represented by suffering 
millions; and the Youth of a Nation are the trustees 
of Posterity." 

SyhU; or, The Two Nations, was published by Col- 
burn in 1845; has gone through many editions in Eng- 
land and America; was translated into French in 
1870; and bears the well-known dedication: 

"I would inscribe these volumes to one whose 
noble spirit and gentle nature ever prompt her to 
sympathize with the suffering; to one whose sweet 
voice has often encouraged, and whose taste and 
judgment have ever guided, their pages; the most 
severe of critics, but — a perfect Wife!" 

Sir George Sinclair was Edinburgh-born in 1790, 
and at Harrow was intimate with Byron — an associa- 
"Oneofm ^^^^ which is presumably relied upon by 
Oldest his son. Sir Tollemache Sinclair, in pro- 

posing [1903] to place tablets to Byron's 
memory at Hucknall Torkard, though the poet's own 
descendants are perfectly able, and perfectly quali- 
fied, to be the guardians of his tomb. After leaving 
Harrow, Sir George went as a student to Gottingen. 
He was elected M.P. for Caithness before he attained 
his majority, and he sat for about thirty years, the 
last three or four of which were those of Disraeli's 
first membership. He married, in 1816, Camilla, 
daughter of Sir William Manners; in 1851 he joined 
the Free Church of Scotland; and he died in 1868, hav- 

381 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

ing, a year earlier, dissociated himself from the Tory 
party in consequence of their Reform Bill — "the Con- 
servative surrender" to democracy, as the Quarterly 
Revieic called it, for once in alliance with the Whig 
Edinburgh Review. 

To Sir George Sinclair, Bart. 

"Grosvenor Gate, 
"March iBth, 1846. 

"My dear Sir George : I have delayed answering 
your very welcome letter, in the hope that I might 
find a quiet half-hour to communicate with one for 
whom I have so much regard and respect as yourself. 
But that seems impossible, and I can not allow an- 
other day to pass without expressing how much 
touched I was by hearing from you, and how much I 
sympathize with those sorrows which have prevented 
us all of late enjoying your society. 

"Here we are involved in a struggle of ceaseless 
excitement and energy. Deserted by our leaders, even 
by the subalterns of the camp, we have been obliged 
to organize ourselves and to choose chieftains from 
the rank and file: but the inspiration of a good cause 
and a great occasion has in some degree compensated 
for our deficiencies, and we work with enthusiasm. 
Would you were among us to aid and counsel, and 
that great spirit too, departed from this world as well 
as the senate, on whose memory I often dwell with 
respect and fondness. 

"I thank you for your hints, of which I shall avail 
myself, and shall always be proud and happy to 
cherish your friendship. 

"Yours, dear Sir George, very sincerely, 

"B. Disraeli." 

382 



"ONE OF MY OLDEST FRIENDS" 



To Sir George Sinclair, Bart. 

"Gbosvenor Gate, 
"JYovember 25th, 1847. 

"My dear Sir George: I do not pretend to be a 
correspondent, as I have often told you. I am over- 
worked, otherwise I should be glad to communicate 
with you, of all men, in the spirit, and bathe the mem- 
ory sometimes in those delicious passages of ancient 
song which your unrivaled scholarship so beautifully 
commands. My dear friend John Manners writes to 
me every week, now he is shut out from Parliament, 
and expects no return, but he gives me his impressions 
and counsels, often the clearer from his absence from 
our turbulent and excited scene. I can not venture 
to ask such favors from you, though I should know 
how to appreciate the suggestive wisdom of a classic 
sage. 

"On Tuesday will commence one of the most 
important debates that ever took place in the House 
of Commons. I shall reserve myself, I apprehend, to 
the end. It will last several nights. There is a pas- 
sage about usury, which haunts my memory, and which 
I fancied was in Juvenal, but I could not light upon 
it as I threw my eye over the pages yesterday. Not- 
withstanding our utilitarian senate, I wish that, if 
possible, the noble Roman spirit should sometimes be 
felt in the House of Commons, expressed in its own 
magnificent tongue. I have of late years ventured 
sometimes on this, not without success, and in one 
instance I remember a passage which I owed to your 
correspondence. It was apposite, when in reference 
to Sir James Graham's avowed oblivion of the past 
I told him — 

"Ut di neminerunt, meminit fides. 

383 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

"Let me at least hear that you are better, and al- 
ways believe me, with the most unaffected regard, 
jour friend and servant, 

"B. Disraeli." 

Once, when Mrs. Disraeli accompanied her hus- 
band to a photographer who had asked a sitting 
from him and who gave him a pedestal to rest upon, 
she leapt from her ambush, and pushed away the 
pedestal, exclaiming: "Dizzy has never had any 
one but me to lean upon in life, and he shall not be 
shown with a prop now." In this letter to Sir George 
Sinclair we have a glimpse of the caged politician 
putting out his trunk, as the elephant might at the 
zoo, for a cracker. The sincerity of the allusion to 
Lord John Manners's letters will be accepted by those 
whose experience of Lord John as a correspondent 
has enabled them to appreciate his sane outlook and 
his very direct powers of expression. Later Sir 
George Sinclair refused his name to the Edinburgh 
committee of welcome to his old correspondent, whom, 
as these early letters show, he had primed with quo- 
tations to baffle and demolish his opponents. With 
the letters of twenty years earlier before us, we read 
with double interest Disraeli's allusions to the ab- 
sentee in 1867: 

"Pardon," he said, "some feeling on my part when 
I remember that it is in consequence of my conduct, 
in consequence of our unprincipled withdrawal of se- 
curities, and the betrayal of our supporters, who in- 
sisted on being betrayed, that I miss to-day the pres- 
ence of one of my oldest and most valued friends. I 

384 



"ONE OF MY OLDEST FRIENDS " 

should have liked to be welcomed by his cordial heart 
and with the ripe scholarship which no one appreci- 
ated more than myself. He has communicated the 
withdrawal of his confidence in a letter which, strange 
to say, has not a quotation. No one could have fur- 
nished a happier one. I can picture him to myself at 
this moment in the castellated shades of Thurso with 
the Edinburgh Review on one side, and on the other 
^the Conservative surrender.' ... I see many 
gentlemen who have doubtless been as magistrates, 
like myself, inspectors of peculiar asylums. You 
meet there some cases which I have always thought 
at the same time the most absurd and the most dis- 
tressing. It is when the inmate believes that all the 
world is mad and that he himself is sane. But, to pass 
from these gloomy images, really these Edinburgh and 
Quarterly Reviewers no one more admires than myself. 
But I admire them as I do first-rate post-houses which, 
in old days, to use a Manchester phrase, ^^carried on 
a roaring trade.' Then there comes some revolution 
of progress. Things are altered. Boots of the Blue 
Bell and the chambermaid of the Red Lion embrace, 
and they are quite in accord in this — in denouncing 
the infamy of railroads." 

To Sir George Sinclair, Bart. 

[Just after the expulsion of Louis Philippe from Paris.] 

"My dear Sir George: Thanks, many, for your 
excellent hints of this morning. Every day for these 
two months I have been wishing to find a moment of 
repose to write to you — but I have been entirely en- 

^^ 385 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

grossed with affairs, public and private — and now 
after all, I write to you in the midst of a revolution. 
The catastrophe of Paris is so vast, so sudden, so inex- 
plicable, so astounding, that I have not yet recovered 
from the intelligence of yesterday afternoon. It must 
have an effect on this country, and on all Europe pre- 
pared to explode. Here the tone of men is changed 
in an instant, and our friend Joseph Hume made a 
speech last night under the inspiration of the Jacobin- 
ical triumph — quite himself again! 

"As for votes of non-confidence, had one been pro- 
posed when you suggested it, I calculated that the 
Government might have had two hundred majority: 
all the Peelites and time-servers being then prepared 
to support them. Affairs are now somewhat changed, 
and it is on the cards that a few days may produce 
some result. I am heartily glad I denounced the 
Jacobin movement of Manchester ^ before this last 
French revolution. I am obliged and gratified by all 
your letters, and enclose some documents as you 

wished. 

"Yours ever, 

"D." 



"GrROSVENOR GrATE, 

"Half -past one. 

"My dear Wood : My not seeing you this morning 
has terribly deranged my plans, as there is a Cabinet 

Government at twO o'clock. 

"Ghosts." "I send this by messenger to beg that 

you will come on immediately to D.S. [Downing 
Street], and I will come out of the Cabinet to see you, 

' The reference is to a speech made by Bright at Manchester containing 
the words: "Manchester ought to unfurl the banner of Liberty, Fraternity,^ 
and Equality." 

386 



GOVERNMENT "GHOSTS" 

as there is a point, among many others, on which I 

wish to speak with you, without a moment's loss of 

time. 

"Yours sincerely, 

"D." 

The letter is undated; and the Cabinet and the 
Wood that was to fill its crevices at a moment's notice 
are now difficult to identify. None the less, like the 
letters to Sir George Sinclair, it illustrates the bustle, 
the sudden search for detail, the dry diligence, that 
frequently became the portion of a working debater, 
and still more of an imperturbable Chancellor of the 
Exchequer. Downing Street is haunted — in every 
cupboard is the skeleton of a speech, and behind each 
chair a "ghost." 

Disraeli could look back on the old "coaching" 
days in two senses: the days when the early Railway 
Bills demanded on the part of the legislator a knowl- 
edge only to be had from experts by word of mouth — 
the treatises had not had time to be written. Mr. 
George Somes Layard tells the story of "A Scrap of 
Paper," not without its own touch of drama — a story 
in which quite another Wood appears. In 1847, dur- 
ing the debate on the Suspension of Public Works 
(Ireland) Bill, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Sir 
Charles Wood (afterward Lord Halifax), quoted some 
figures, on the faith of an anonymous informant, 
showing that only a quarter of the money spent on 
constructing a line went into the pockets' of the labor- 
ers. "And what has the honorable member for 
Shrewsbury (Mr. Disraeli) dared to do? He has 

387 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

actually risen in his place and said that he has seen 
or communicated with the gentleman from whom 
these figures were received, and had heard from him 
that he (Sir Charles Wood) had entirely misconceived 
them. What will the House think of this statement 
of the honorable member in view of the following 
message from my anonymous informant: 'I certainly 
never called upon Mr. Disraeli or communicated with 
him in my life'?" 

When the member for Shrewsbury arose, he was 
narrowly watched by the Commons, who plainly ap- 
peared to think that something Machiavellian was in 
course of unravelment. Mr. Disraeli corrected the 
Chancellor. He had not stated that he had been in 
communication with the anonymous informant from 
whom the figures had been obtained by the Minister, 
but that he had been in communication with a gentle- 
man of great experience and peculiar knowledge on 
scientific subjects who supposed, from the speech of 
the Chancellor of the Exchequer, that he had been the 
person it contained allusions to, since he had been in 
correspondence with the Government. "All this con- 
fusion," Mr. Disraeli went on to say, "arises from 
using anonymous communications in this House. But 
when we know the number of persons who communi- 
cate directly or indirectly with the Government, not, 
perhaps, with persons in as exalted a position as the 
right honorable gentleman, but with persons in a very 
high position, I can readily understand twenty or 
thirty or even fifty of these anonymous individuals 
going about London and believing that they are the 

388 



i 



GOVERNMENT "GHOSTS " 

authorities whose statements the Minister has re- 
peated to the assembled Parliament." Mr. Disraeli 
then offered to give his informant's name if the House 
required it; but, inasmuch as he was a professional 
gentleman, and the circumstances might place him in 
an invidious position, he thought that perhaps the 
House would not demand it, especially as the state- 
ment had not been made to him alone, but in the pres- 
ence of his noble friend the member for Lynn (Lord 
George Bentinck). And then, after alluding again to 
the Chancellor of the Exchequer's "lecture, which I 
don't think was needed," Mr. Disraeli sat down. 

Nearly half a century later Mr. George Somes 
Layard, looking over some papers that came to him 
after the death of an uncle, found "a scrap of thin 
bluish-gray paper, gilt-edged and brown-stained with 
age." It was in "the delicate handwriting" of Lord 
George Bentinck, and it ran : 

"Harcourt House, 

''February IGth [1847]. 

"My dear Sir: I particularly want to see you 
here at four o'clock exactly about Mr. Disraeli's state- 
ment regarding the Chancellor of the Exchequer's 
anonymous informant, Mr. Disraeli will be here. 
"I am, very faithfully yours, 

"G. Bentinck." 

The name of the professional informant was thus 
at last divulged. "My uncle, to whom it was written," 
says Mr. G. S. Layard, "had had large experience of 
railway construction under Isambard Kingdon Bru- 
nei, chief engineer to the Great Western Railway." 

389 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

To Montagu Scott, on February 17, 1864, Disraeli 
wrote: "I thank you for your telegram, and I congrat- 
ulate you on your triumph." When Dis- 
Congratuia- raeli was returned in 1841 for Shrewsbury 
'°"^' as a Tory, he at once sent the news of his 

victory to Sir Robert Peel. The Minister would feel 
inspired with great courage, he said, to hear that the 
electors of Shrewsbury had "done their duty." Per- 
haps this memory of his early life softened him in 
after-years when, as Prime Minister or Opposition 
leader, he himself was the recipient of innumerable 
such notes. Even so bare a formulary as that now 
given becomes a bore when it has to be done to order 
by the dozen; but Disraeli, although he hated letter- 
writing, industriously did this duty with his own right 
hand, and Lord Salisbury and Mr. Balfour, in this 
order of correspondence, have maintained the tradi- 
tion they inherited. 

To the Editor of the "Debates." 

GROSVENOR GrATB, 

"April 19th, 1862. 

"Mr. Disraeli has received from Mr. Hansard a 
proof of Debate of March 18th, on Science, Art, etc., 
Proof-Reading but he has not received any proof of his 
for "Hansard. "speech in the preceding debate on Mr. 
HorsfalFs motion on Belligerent rights. 

"Why is this? 

"This is important and must be immediately at- 
tended to." 

Disraeli, whose columns in Hansard are beyond 
counting, was to the end anxious for accuracy in its 

390 




/^^ ^^^:>^ 



J'/^^^Z^ ^ /^ 



^ vX 




FACSIMILE OF LETTER FROM DISRAELI TO MONTAGU SCOTT. 

391 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

reports. Perhaps he counted on remedying the de- 
fects in some newspaper versions of his utterances. 
After making ''a good speech in a difficult position 
on a diflflcult subject," but delivered so far out of range 
as at obscure Aylesbury, in 1851, he complained: "I 
saw to-day in the Times two columns of incoherent 
and contradictory nonsense which made me blush, 
though I ought to be hardened by this time." On an- 
other occasion he said he did not mind what was left 
out of his speeches, but resented w^hat was put into 
them, Hansard itself he mentioned by name in the 
House in 1845: "Why, Hansard, instead of being the 
Delphi of Downing Street, is but the Dunciad of 
politics." 

For reasons not difficult to divine speeches in Par- 
liament occupy less space in the press than they did 
thirty or forty years ago; with the departure of Dis- 
raeli public interest in debate suffered a further de- 
cline. The day and the month of this letter-date were 
those of that departure — April 19th. 

To Sir Lawrence Palk, Bart., M.P. 

"GROSVBNOR GtATE, 

"Simday, May lAth, 1865. 

'^Mon Tres Cher: I have seen Lord Stanhope twice, 
A Man of and should like much to see you. 
Devon. "Could you call on me to-day at three 

o'clock, or to-morrow at twelve? 

"Yours ever, 

"D." 

Disraeli several times stayed with the Palks in 
the neighborhood of Exeter, the city of which he had 

392 



A MAN OF DEVON 

occasion to write in the Memoir of his father: "It so 
happened that about the year 1795, when he was in 
his twenty-ninth year, there came over my father that 
mysterious illness" (he was twenty-four when he him- 
self suffered from it) "to which the youth of men of 
sensibility, and especially literary men, is frequently 
subject — a failing of nervous energy, occasioned by 
study and too sedentary habits, early and habitual 
reverie, restless and indefinite purpose. The symp- 
toms, physical and moral, are most distressing: lassi- 
tude and despondency. And it usually happens, as 
in the present instance, that the cause of suffering is 
not recognized; and that medical men, misled by the 
superficial symptoms, and not seeking to acquaint 
themselves with the psychology of their patients, ar- 
rive at erroneous, often fatal, conclusions. In this 
case the most eminent of the faculty gave it as their 
opinion that the disease was consumption. Dr. Tur- 
ton, if I recollect aright, was the most considered 
physician of the day. An immediate visit to a warmer 
climate was the specific; and as the Continent was 
then disturbed, and foreign residence out of the ques- 
tion. Dr. Turton recommended that his patient should 
establish himself without delay in Devonshire. When 
my father communicated this impending change in his 
life to Wolcot, the modern Skelton shook his head. 
He did not believe that his friend was in a consump- 
tion; but, being a Devonshire man, and loving very 
much his native province, he highly approved of the 
remedy. He gave my father several letters of intro- 
duction to persons of consideration at Exeter; among 

393 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

others, one whom he Justly described as a poet and 
a physician and the best of men, the late Dr. Hugh 
Downman. 

"Provincial cities very often enjoy a transient term 
of intellectual distinction. An eminent man often 
collects around him congenial spirits, and the power 
of association sometimes produces distant effects 
which even an individual, however gifted, could 
scarcely have anticipated. A combination of circum- 
stances had made at this time Exeter a literary 
metropolis. A number of distinguished men flourished 
there at the same moment; some of their names are 
even now [1848] remembered. Jackson of Exeter still 
survives as a native composer of original genius. He 
was also an author of high esthetical speculation. The 
heroic poems of Hole are forgotten; but his essay on 
The Arabian Nights is still a cherished volume of ele- 
gant and learned criticism. Hayter w^as the classic 
antiquary who first discovered the art of unrolling the 
MSS. of Herculaneum. There are many others, noisier 
and more bustling, who are now forgotten, though 
they in some degree influenced the literary opinion 
of their time. It was said, and I believe truly, that 
the two principal, if not sole, organs of periodical 
criticism at that time, I think the Critical Review and 
the Monthly Review, were principally supported by 
Exeter contributions. No doubt this circumstance 
may account for a great deal of mutual praise and 
sympathetic opinion upon literary subjects, which, by 
a convenient arrangement, appeared in the pages of 
publications otherwise professing contrary opinions. 

394 



A MAN OF DEVON 

Exeter had then even a Learned Society which pub- 
lished its Transactions. 

"With such companions, by whom he was received 
with a kindness and hospitality which to the last he 
often dwelt on, it may easily be supposed that the 
banishment of my father from the delights of literary 
London was not as productive a source of gloom as 
the exile of Ovid to the savage Pontus, even if it had 
not been his happy fortune to be received on terms of 
intimate friendship by the accomplished family of 
Mr. Baring, who was then member for Exeter,^ and 
beneath whose roof he passed a great portion of the 
period of nearly three years during which he remained 
in Devonshire.* The illness of my father was relieved 
but not removed by this change of life. Dr. Downman 
was his physician, whose only remedies were port 
wine, horse exercise, rowing on the neighboring river, 
and the distraction of agreeable society. This wise 
physician recognized the temperament of his patient, 
and perceived that his physical derangement was an 
effect instead of a cause. My father, instead of being in 
a consumption, was endowed with a frame of almost 

1 Disraeli the Younger was to cross less secluded paths with these same 
Barings. It was the early rumor of Sir Thomas Baring's elevation to the 
peerage which gave the boy at Bradenham the hope of first entering Parlia- 
ment for Wycombe ; and he is found writing to his sister in April, 1836, a 
year before he did actually get elsewhere a seat : "The Carlton is a great 
lounge, and I have found a kind friend in Francis Baring, Lord Ashburton's 
eldest son." Again, three months later : "We had a most agreeable party at 
the Ashburtons' — the Baring family are disposed to be very friendly." But 
when a Baring became, later again, a bishop, the High Churchmen of Durham 
diocese did not think this particular representative of the Baring family at all 
"friendly." To them he was, in the intimate talk of their rectories, "Over 
Baring," "Past Baring," and "Bear-in-a-ring." 

395 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

superhuman strength, which was destined for half a 
century of continuous labor and sedentary life. The 
vital principle in him, indeed, was so strong that when 
he left us at eighty-two it was only as the victim of 
a violent epidemic." 

If, for his father's sake, Disraeli later walked the 
streets of Exeter and looked on the Exe, seeing all 
the ducks as swans, another and the only nearer asso- 
ciation possible to him was that which existed be- 
tween the city and his wife. The story that she was 
an Exeter shop-girl when Wyndham Lewis first be- 
held her may go its way with the legend that she was 
a Welsh mill-hand. She had spent her girlhood, how- 
ever, almost within sight of Haldon, in her father's 
house at Brampf ord Speke, and thither she drove with 
her husband to revisit the modest farmstead in which 
her mother's fair fortune had enabled her to pass a 
prosperous childhood, the simplest ever passed by any 
woman whose "predestined brows" were to wear a 
coronet in their "own right." 

Exeter supplied also a third link in the chain of 
Disraeli's fate. At the Palks' he met the lady who, 
by letter, had already made his acquaintance, and 
who shares with him and with Lady Beaconsfield the 
"narrow house" at Hughenden — Mrs. Brydges Wil- 
lyams. Because he, too, met her at the Palks', the 
twelfth Duke of Somerset may here be quoted as 
writing to the Duchess (February, 1858) : "There was 
a party in the evening . . . the most remarkable 
person was a little dark old woman, smothered up in 
a black wig, who is said to be near a hundred, and 

396 



A MAN OF DEVON 

very rich; she is Disraeli's great friend, and the person 
whom he comes to see at Torquay; as she has no near 
relations, it is to be hoped she will leave him her 
money." 

In Sir Lawrence Palk, Disraeli found a supporter 
who kept the pace. In the Reform Movement espe- 
cially he was no laggard; and when Disraeli's Edin- 
burgh phrase about "educating" the party was the 
occasion of a good deal of strained banter, Sir Law- 
rence declared to his constituents that he, for one, 
had needed no cramming. The ever racy Bernal 
Osborne (himself of the tribe of Judah and an old 
friend, though a political opponent, of Disraeli) al- 
luded to the Minister and to Sir Lawrence Palk in a 
rampant speech delivered to his Nottingham constitu- 
ents about this time: "Now, it is all very well to talk 
of Lord Derby being the leader, but the real man who 
pulls the strings and has reconstructed the party is 
Mr. Disraeli. (Cheers and groans.) Never groan at a 
man of such great and brilliant intelligence. Al- 
though I am opposed to him, I am proud of him, and 
so ought you to be, and I will tell you why; because he 
is a real working man, who has made himself, with- 
out connections, by nothing but his great abilities; 
and, though I differ from their application, I will al- 
ways give my meed of praise to the intelligence which 
has made for itself such a splendid position. I do Mr. 
Disraeli full credit, so much so as to think that though 
he may occasionally have held the candle to the de- 
lusions of the Tory party, he has never credited their 
dogmas, nor acted upon their principles. I will not 

397 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

go into the morality of the thing, but I believe Mr. 
Disraeli, in his heart, has always been a Liberal — nay, 
more — has been a Radical, biding his time, . . . 
Mr. Disraeli remarked at the Lord Mayor's Banquet 
that 'a patriotic Parliament' had passed the Reform 
Bill; but they passed it, wearied out by details, and 
as they would any other measure had they had their 
noses kept to the grindstone night and day, many of 
them, too, having paid heavily for their seats and not 
wanting a dissolution. A good deal had been heard 
about the origin of household suffrage; there always 
were numerous claimants for great inventions; Sir 
Isaac Newton's were now claimed for a Frenchman, 
Pascal; but it did not greatly matter whether it was 
got from Hume or Bright, or, to go further back, from 
General Cartwright, who once sat for Nottingham, 
and who was so Radical a Reformer, he was for abol- 
ishing the Trinity and owing nothing to anybody. It 
had, however, always been supposed that the wise 
men came from the East, but the other day — though, 
perhaps, not many of them read it, for the speaker 
was not a very distinguished gentleman — the other 
day there was a still small voice heard in the west — 
the West of England. At a Conservative dinner this 
small voice denied that Mr. Disraeli had educated his 
party. The speaker, for himself and colleague, said, 
'We were not at the great Parliamentary academy of 
Dotheboys Hall (laughter); we never were put there, 
but we, the members for Devonshire, made the dis- 
covery for ourselves.' Sir Lawrence Palk claimed that 
he suggested it to the Government and they acted 

398 



THE WOMAN OF THE WINDFALL 

upon it. (A laugh.)" At any rate, Sir Lawrence was 
Disraeli's Moii tres cher at a time when the Derby- 
Disraeli Reform Bill was coming within measura- 
ble distance of practical politics. He had done 
with constituencies in April, 1880, when he went 
to the Upper House as Lord Haldon, and he died 
in 1883. 

Mrs. Brydges Willyams became a correspondent 
of Disraeli's in 1851. A stranger, she was the first 
-^ „T to write; she was the second to write; 

The Woman ' 

of the Wind- also she was the third to write. Many 

fall 

women write to statesmen to express 
their admiration; and the mere fact that this lady 
added a request for Disraeli's advice on a matter of 
business did not deter him — an unwilling correspond- 
ent always — from putting her note into the •fire. In 
her second note, greatly daring, she proposed a meet- 
ing beside the fountain in the Exhibition Building. 
Writing to her years later, when he had made her 
acquaintance, he says of the 1862 Exhibition at South 
Kensington: 

"This is not so fascinating a one as that you remem- 
ber when you made an assignation by the Crystal 
Fountain which I was ungallant enough not to keep, 
being far away when it arrived at Grosvenor Gate. 
The later exhibition," he adds, "though not so charm- 
ing as the first, is even more wonderful. That was a 
woman — this is a man." 

If all men were Disraelis, the allusion to their 
wonderfulness might well stand. Wonderful enough 

399 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

a woman was Mrs. Brydges Willyams of Mount Brad- 
don, Torquay, daughter and heiress of Mendez da 
Costa, a Jew, like the Disraelis, of Spanish line. Miss 
da Costa's father was a man about town in the early 
'thirties in London, and was commonly called the 
Colonel, in allusion to his having fought with, or fol- 
lowed, the Napoleonic army during the Peninsular 
War. Her husband, a member of the Cornish family 
of Willyams, left her a childless widow in 1820. 
Thirty years elapsed before she wrote to Disraeli, 
whose public career she probably followed from the 
first. The two neglected letters were succeeded by 
the third, in which she pressed for the meeting by the 
Crystal Fountain. This time Disraeli kept the tryst — 
as marvelous as any in his own novels. Hear Mr. 
Froude, who perhaps, himself a Devonian, took a 
special interest in the story, and in whose hands it 
loses nothing in the telling: 

"By the side of the fountain he found sitting an old 
woman, very small in person, strangely dressed, and 
peculiar in manner; such a figure as might be drawn 
in an illustrated story for a fairy grandmother. She 
told him a long story of which he could make nothing. 
Seeing that he was impatient she placed an envelope 
in his hands, which, she said, contained the state- 
ment of a case on which she desired a high legal opin- 
ion. She begged him to examine it at his leisure. He 
thrust the envelope carelessly in his pocket, and, 
supposing that she was not in her right mind, thought 
no more about the matter. The coat which he was 
wearing was laid aside, and weeks passed before he 

400 



THE WOMAN OF THE WINDFALL 

happened to put it on again. When he did put it on, 
the packet was still where it had been left. He tore it 
open, and found a bank-note for a thousand pounds 
as a humble contribution to his election expenses, with 
the case for the lawyers, which was less absurd than 
he had expected. This was, of course, submitted to 
a superior counsel, whose advice was sent at once to 
Torquay with acknowledgments and apologies for the 
delay. I do not know what became of the thousand 
pounds. It was probably returned. But this was the 
beginning of an acquaintance which ripened into a 
close and affectionate friendship. The Disraelis vis- 
ited Mount Braddon at the close of the London season 
year after year. The old lady was keen, clever, and 
devoted. A correspondence began, which grew more 
and more intimate till at last Disraeli communicated 
freely to her the best of his thoughts and feelings. 
Presents were exchanged weekly. Disraeli's writing- 
table was adorned regularly with roses from Torquay, 
and his dinners enriched with soles and turbot from 
the Brixham trawlers. He in turn provided Mrs. 
Willyams with trout and partridges from Hughenden, 
and passed on to her the venison and the grouse which 
his friends sent him from the Highlands. The letters 
which they exchanged have been happily preserved on 
both sides. Disraeli wrote himself when he had 
leisure; when he had none, Mrs. Disraeli wrote instead 
of him. The curious and delicate idyll was prolonged 
for twelve years, at the end of which Mrs. Willyams 
died, bequeathing to him her whole fortune, and ex- 
pressing a wish, which of course was complied with, 
2^ 401 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

that she might be buried at Hughenden, near the spot 
where Disraeli was himself to lie." 

The letters are generally political, and rarely, as 
this one is, at all personal. Thus in 1861, in an earlier 
letter than this, after speaking of the United States 
as the unexpected "scene of a mighty revolution," he 
adds: "No one can foresee its results" — a truth which 
he rather perversely, as times have shown, proceeds 
to contradict by declaring: "They must, however, tell 
immensely in favor of an aristocracy." It may be 
added that Mrs. Willyams at first wished that Dis- 
raeli, as her heir, should prefix to his surname her 
maiden name, Da Costa; but she did not persevere 
in pressing this proposition as a condition. 

Disraeli to Mrs. Brydges Willyams. 

"Hughenden, 

''^^eptemhe?' 2nd, 1862. 

"I am quite myself again; and as I have been drink- 
ing your magic beverage for a week, and intend to 
"The Lady pursue it, you may fairly claim all the 
of Shaiott." glory of my recovery, as a fairy cures a 
knight after a tournament or a battle. I have a great 
weakness for mutton broth, especially with that 
magical sprinkle which you did not forget. I shall 
call you in future after an old legend and a modern 
poem, 'The Lady of Shaiott.' I think the water of 
which it was made would have satisfied even you, for 
it was taken every day from our stream, which rises 
among the chalk hills, glitters in the sun over a very 
pretty cascade, then spreads and sparkles into a little 
lake in which is a natural island. Since I wrote to you 
last we have launched in the lake two most beautiful 

402 



"AN AGE OF INFINITE ROMANCE" 

cygnets, to whom we have given the names of Hero and 
Leander. They are a source to us of unceasing in- 
terest and amusement. They are very handsome and 
very large, but as yet dove-colored. I can no longer 
write to you of Cabinet Councils or Parliamentary 
struggles. Here I see nothing but trees or books, so 
you must not despise the news of my swans." 



To Mrs. Brydges Willyams. 

''December 9th, 1863. 

"They say the Greeks, resolved to have an English 
King, in consequence of the refusal of Prince Alfred 
"An Age of to be their monarch, intend to elect Lord 
Infinite Stanley. If he accepts the charge, I shall 

Romance.' ^ose a powerful friend and colleague. It 
is a dazzling adventure for the House of Stanley, but 
they are not an imaginative race, and I fancy they 
will prefer Knowsley to the Parthenon, and Lanca- 
shire to the Attic plains. It is a privilege to live in 
this age of rapid and brilliant events. What an error 
to consider it a utilitarian age! It is one of infinite 
romance. Thrones tumble down, and crowns are 
offered like a fairy tale; and the most powerful people 
in the world, male and female, a few years back were 
adventurers, exiles, and demireps. Vive la bagatelle! 
Adieu. 

"D." 

"February '1th, 1863. 

"The Greeks really want to make my friend Lord 
Stanley their king. This beats any novel. I think he 
ought to take the crown; but he will not. Had I his 
youth, I would not hesitate even with the earldom of 
Derby in the distance." 

403 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

Oddly enough, Disraeli himself had once, if only 
for a moment, fancied himself, under favorable condi- 
tions, a plausible candidate for the Greek crown. The 
story, which takes us back more than thirty-three 
years, was told in an article on "The Early Life of 
Lord Beaconsfleld" in the Quarterly Review (January, 
1889): "At the end of November [1830] he reached 
Athens. The city was still in the possession of the 
Turks, but was about to be handed over to the Greek 
Commission appointed to receive it. The Greeks, who 
were seeking for a king, were so 'utterly astounded' 
by the magnificence and strangeness of his whimsical 
costume, and so much impressed by his general ap- 
pearance, that he 'gathered a regular crowd round 
his quarters, and had to come forward and bow like 
Don Miguel and Donna Maria.' 'Had he £25,000 to 
throw away, he might, he really believed, increase his 
headaches by wearing a crown.' " As it was, he con- 
tented himself on a week's fare of "the wild bo^r of 
Pentelicus and the honey of Hymettus." Had Lord 
Stanley not "preferred Knowsley to the Parthenon," 
the fortunes of Disraeli's further history might have 
been improved by the withdrawal of a colleague who 
afterward deserted him at a critical moment, and of 
whom the Chief later said that he never seemed to 
show any pleased animation unless he was surrender- 
ing a British interest. 



" Oeto&er 17«^, 1863. 

"The troubles and designs of the French Emperor 
are aggravated and disturbed by the death of Billault, 

404 




LORD BEACONSFIELD, 1879. 
The statue by Lord Ronald Gower, in the National Portrait Gallery. 






I 



CAPITALISTS AS PEACEMAKERS 

his only Parliamentary orator and a first-rate one. 
With, for the first time, a real Opposition to en- 
Capitalists as counter, and formed of the old trained 
Peacemakers, speakers of Louis Philippe's reign, in 
addition to the young democracy of oratory which 
the last revolution has itself produced, the incon- 
veniences, perhaps the injuries, of this untimely de- 
cease are incalculable. It may even force, by way of 
distraction, the Emperor into war. Our own Ministry 
have managed their affairs very badly, according to 
their friends. The Polish question is a diplomatic 
Frankenstein, created out of cadaverous remnants by 
the mystic blundering of Lord Russell. At present 
the peace of the world has been preserved not by 
statesmen, but by capitalists. For the last three 
months it has been a struggle between the secret so- 
cieties and the Emperor's millionaires. Rothschild 
hitherto has won, but the death of Billault may be 
as fatal to him as the poignard of a Polish patriot, 
for I believe in that part of the world they are called 
'patriots,' though in Naples only 'brigands.' " 

This letter was written when Poland had revolted 
against Russia, weakened by the Crimean war, and 
when France, after the campaign against Austrian 
rule in Italy, seemed likely to turn her hand, for dis- 
traction from internal troubles, to an anti-Russian 
adventure. Disraeli, who weighed the words "pa- 
triots" and "brigands," falls into the popular con- 
fusion between Frankenstein and his creation. 

To Mrs. Brydges Willyams. 

" November 5th, 1863. 
"The great Imperial sphinx is at this moment 
speaking. I shall not know the mysterious utterances 

405 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

until to-morrow, and shall judge of his conduct as 
much by his silence as by his words. The world is 
The Supposed very alarmed and very restless. Although 
Peril for England appears to have backed out of 

Prussia. -^YiiB possible war, there are fears that the 

French ruler has outwitted us, and that by an alliance 
with Austria and the aid of the Italian armies he may 
cure the partition of Poland by a partition of Prussia; 
Austria in that case to regain Silesia, which Frederick 
the Great won a century ago from Maria Theresa, 
France to have the Rhine, and Galicia and Posen to 
be restored to Poland. If this happens, it will give 
altogether a new form and color to European politics. 
The Queen is much alarmed for the future throne of 
her daughter; but as the war will be waged for the 
relief of Poland, of which England has unwisely ap- 
proved, and to which in theory she is pledged, we shall 
really be checkmated and scarcely could find an ex- 
cuse to interfere even if the nation wished." 

The impending expansion and invincibility of 
Prussia was not then foreseen, even by cool heads that 
had no fears or prepossessions born of family affec- 
tions. Sir Henry Layard, for instance, a good speci- 
men of the ambassador on whose wisdom and pre- 
science our national existence hangs, writing three 
years earlier (1860) of the affairs of disturbed Europe, 
had calculated on Prussia's taking a place inferior to 
that of Italy in the scale of nations: "If Garibaldi, who 
is the weakest and most easily influenced man in the 
world, can only be kept quiet, and the set of scoun- 
drels who surround him and lead him be sent about 
their business, Austria at the same being kept within 
her boundaries, and not allowed to interfere, there is 

406 



THE DISRAELI ARMS 

every reason to believe that in ten years from this 
time Italy will take her place among the great 
nations of Europe, and will probably far exceed 
at least two of them — perhaps even three — Russia, 
Austria, and Prussia, in prosperity, material wealth, 
and strength." 

Mrs. Brydges Willyams corresponded with Disraeli 
(claiming kinship, as he did, with the Lara family) 
The Disraeli about quarterings for her coat-of-arms. 
Arms. In her behalf he communicated with "am- 

bassadors and Ministers of State," and even ex- 
changed parleyings with the private cabinet of the 
Queen of Spain. The following letter contains allu- 
sions to his own crest, which showed the tower of 
Castile and his motto, Forti nihil difficile, used by him 
as early as at his election at Shrewsbury: 

To Mrs. Brydges Willyams. 

" July 2Srd, 1859. 

"The Spanish families never had supporters, 
crests, or mottoes. The tower of Castile, which I use 
as a crest, and which was taken from one of the quar- 
ters of my shield, was adopted by a Lara in the six- 
teenth century in Italy, where crests were the custom 
— at least in the north of Italy — copied from the 
German heraldry. This also applies to my motto. 
None of the southern races, I believe, have supporters 
or crests. This is Teutonic. With regard to the coro- 
net, in old days, especially in the south, all coronets 
were the same, and the distinction of classes from the 
ducal strawberry leaf to the baron's balls is of com- 
paratively modern introduction." 

407 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 



To the Editor of the ''Times:' 

"Downing Street, 
" March 6th, 1868. 

"Sir: Lord Russell observed last night in the 
House of Lords that I 'boasted at Edinburgh that 
The "Edu- whilst during seven years I opposed a re- 
cator." duction of the borough franchise, I had 

been all that time educating my party with the view 
of bringing about a much greater reduction of the 
franchise than that which my opponents had pro- 
posed." As a general rule, I never notice misrepre- 
sentations of what I may have said; but as this charge 
was made against me in an august assembly, and by 
a late First Minister of the Crown, I will not refrain 
from observing that the charge has no foundation. 
Nothing of the kind was said by me at Edinburgh. I 
said there that the Tory party, after the failure of 
their bill of 1859, had been educated for seven years 
on the subject of a Parliamentary Reform, and during 
that interval had arrived at five conclusions, which, 
with their authority, I had at various times an- 
nounced, viz.: 

"1. That the measure should be complete. 

"2. That the representation of no place should be 
entirely abrogated. 

"3. That there must be a real Boundary Commis- 
sion. 

"4. That the county representation should be con- 
siderably increased. 

"5. That the borough franchise should be estab- 
lished on the principle of rating. 

"This is what I said at Edinburgh, and it is true. 
"I am, sir, your obedient servant, 

"B. Disraeli." 

408 



THE "EDUCATOR" 

Very rarely did Disraeli address letters, after he 
entered Parliament, to the public press. He had had his 
surfeit with the O'Connell controversy; later, he likes 
to pay his faithful constituents the compliment of his 
political confidences; and, on occasion, there was a 
Duke of Marlborough, a Grey de Wilton, or a Lord 
Dartmouth to be addressed in a document seeking a 
publicity greater than that gained by a letter indited 
to any one newspaper, and conferring, besides, upon 
its recipient a personal gratification. The letter 
which offers an exception to this rule was called forth 
by the sentence it quotes from Lord Russell; but the 
setting of that sentence was itself noteworthy. Earl 
Russell, a sincere Reformer who had not succeeded in 
''educating" Ms party when Ministers like Lord Palm- 
erston ruled its councils, might well be forgiven a 
momentary pang at the better fortune attending the 
leader of a party that had, in general, looked upon the 
popular suffrage with suspicion and even aversion. 
"We know now," said Lord Russell, with some acidity, 
"that for three years the [Derby-Disraeli] Govern- 
ment has been carried on upon the principle that, 
having declared against any reduction whatever in the 
franchise, the Ministers of the Crown meant all the 
time to make a larger reduction in the franchise than 
was proposed by the Liberal party. The consequence 
is a Government which openly professes one thing 
and means another." The Duke of Marlborough with 
some warmth challenged the speaker. "If the noble 
duke wishes to know what I mean," explained Lord 
Russell, "I must refer him to a speech made by the 

409 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

present Prime Minister at Edinburgh, in which the 
course taken by the Government was not called a 
course of deception, it was not called, as Mr. Disraeli 
once called the Government of Sir Robert Peel, 'an 
organized hypocrisy,' but it was called 'a process of 
education.' " It was, in part, the old story that where 
a Jack Straw would be hung, a Lord John Straw 
could head a Government; that "the country party" 
would confldinglj^ leap into the arms of a Derby-Dis- 
raeli Cabinet, even if it were "a leap in the dark" 
where they would assume a defensive and an offensive 
attitude, in presence of their foes. If "bad form" 
mostly consists of the manners of people we dislike, 
"dangerous legislation" often has its danger appre- 
hended because it comes from a distrusted quarter. 

To the Rev. Arthur Baker, Rector of Addington. 

"HUGHBNDBN MANOR, 

"Maundy Thursday/, 1868. 

"Rev. Sir: I have just received your letter, in 
which, as one of my constituents, you justify your 
Parties in right to ask for some explanation of my 
Church a alleged assertion that the High Church 
Necessity. Ritualists had been long in secret com- 
bination and were now in open federacy with Irish 
Romanists for the destruction of the union between 
Church and State. 

"I acknowledge your right of making this inquiry; 
and if I do not notice in detail the various suggestions 
in your letter, it is from no want of courtesy, but from 
the necessity of not needlessly involving myself in 
literary controversy. 

"You are under a misapprehension if you suppose 

410 



PARTIES IN CHURCH A NECESSITY 

that I intended to cast any slur upon the High Church 
party; I have the highest respect for the High Church 
party. I believe there is no body of men in this coun- 
try to which we have been more indebted, from the 
days of Queen Anne to the days of Queen Victoria, for 
the maintenance of the orthodox faith, the rights of 
the Crown, and the liberties of the people. 

"In saying this I have no wish to intimate that 
the obligations of the country to the other great party 
of the Church are not equally significant. I have 
never looked upon the existence of parties in our 
Church as a calamity; I look upon them as a necessity, 
as a beneficent necessity. They are the natural and 
inevitable consequences of the mild and liberal prin- 
ciples of our ecclesiastical polity, and of the varying 
and opposite elements of the human mind and char- 
acter. When I spoke, I referred to an extreme faction 
in the Church, of very modern date, which does not 
conceal its ambition to destroy the connection be- 
tween Church and State, and which I have reason to 
believe has been in secret communication, and is now 
in open confederacy, with the Irish Eomanists for the 
purpose. 

"The Liberation Society, with its shallow and 
short-sighted fanaticism, is a mere instrument in the 
hands of this confederacy, and will probably be the 
first victim of the spiritual despotism the Liberation 
Society is now blindly working to establish. 

"As I hold that the dissolution of the union be- 
tween Church and State will cause permanently a 
greater revolution in this country than foreign con- 
quest, I shall use my utmost energies to defeat these 
fatal machinations. 

"Believe me, reverend sir, your faithful member 
and servant, 

"B. Disraeli." 
411 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

The speech containing the offending phrase was 
that delivered by Disraeli as First Lord of the Treas- 
ury in the House of Commons in April, 1868, when 
Mr. Gladstone put his Irish Church Disestablishment 
resolutions on the table: 

"The High Church Ritualists, of whom the right 
honorable gentleman (Mr. Gladstone) is the repre- 
sentative here to-night, and the Irish followers of the 
Pope, have long been in secret confederacy, but they 
are now in open combination. Under the guise of 
Liberalism, under the pretense of legislating in the 
spirit of the age, they are about, as they think, to seize 
upon the supreme authority. They have their hand 
upon the Realm of England; but so long as by the 
favor of her Majesty I stand here I will oppose to the 
uttermost the attempts they are making. If they are 
successful, they will do much more than defeat a po- 
litical opponent— they will seriously endanger even 
the tenure of the Crown." 

The common bond of a Disestablishment policy 
threatened or approved alike by Dr. Pusey and by the 
Catholic hierarchy of Ireland (who ordered public 
thanksgivings for Mr. Gladstone's Act when it was 
finally passed) was Disraeli's justification for an asso- 
ciation of two sections whose large agreements are 
yet lost in lesser feuds. Disraeli's pleasure in his first 
Prime Ministry and in his passage of a Reform Bill; 
his sense, too, of the sudden thrust upon him of a 
"burning question" which Mr. Gladstone had only 
three years earlier described as "lying at a distance 
I can not measure" and as "out of all bearing with the 

412 



PARTIES IN CHURCH A NECESSITY 

politics of the day"; — these partly account for Dis- 
raeli's heat and for the discrepancy as between his 
predictions and the now generally recognized facts. 
The speech, too, had its accidental notoriety as being 
"delivered" (said Mr. Gladstone, who followed) "under 
the influence of — a heated imagination." The pause 
after the "of," together with the roar of invited laugh- 
ter from the Opposition that filled it, were the method 
by which this section of the, at times, very common 
Commons of England notified that they had seen the 
Prime Minister swallow at intervals during his speech 
a "pick-me-up" supplied to him by the friendly hand 
of (I think) Lord George Hamilton. The strain upon 
a Prime Minister is great always; at this period it was 
indeed all but overwhelming, and Disraeli, in the 
hands of doctors for insomnia, was able to make this 
great effort only by aid of repeated doses of egg-and- 
brandy. The innuendo of Mr. Gladstone gained the 
readier laugh from those who noted the rather un- 
usual mannerisms of the Prime Minister. Always a 
nervous speaker, and one who found relief in a va- 
riety of animated gestures and manipulations, Dis- 
raeli on this occasion made his handkerchief more 
than usually prominent as a "property," waving it in 
the face of the foe — no white flag, but a red ensign 
of defiance. 

The "Maundy Thursday" dating of a letter written 
on that day was less usual then than now, and it gave 
rise, as did so many other minor naturalnesses on Dis- 
raeli's part, to an outburst of derision (the least hon- 
orable and least lovely sentiment known to men) 

413 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

which he who reads past political history in the light 
of to-day will find impossible of correlation with the 
dignity and intelligence of grown-up men. There are 
still to be found instances in which the example of 
Parliaments has degraded a nation. 

The homage paid to Lord Beaconsfield after his 
death came rather curiously to be cited by an ad- 
vanced Ritualist as a precedent for the veneration of 
images. In the St. Stephen's Parish Magazine of Devon- 
port for February, 1903, the Rev. H. H. Leeper writes : 
"It seems strange that in these so-called enlightened 
days there should be found any to object to the pres- 
ence of images of Christ and His mother and saints 
in our churches. The very people who set up statues 
of statesmen and patriots in our streets and public 
squares refuse to countenance a like honor being paid 
to saints in our churches. The statue of a certain de- 
ceased gentleman on his death-day may be honored by 
huge votive offerings in the shape of flowers placed at 
its base. Against such worship no voice of protest is 
raised. Why, then, is it an act of idolatry to honor 
in like manner a statue of Christ or His mother set up 
in His church?" Assuredly the little Jewish boy who 
played in King's Road never thought to figure in 
polemical literature as an argument in favor of the 
setting up of sacred images in Anglican churches. 



414 



NATURAL SELECTION 



To W. Johnston, M.P. 

"HUGHENDEN MANOR, 

''December 8th, 1869. 

"Dear Mr. Johnston: The leader of a party in 
the Houses of Parliament is never nominated. The 
Natural Selection is always the spontaneous act of 

Selection. the party of the House in which he sits. 
It was so in the case of Lord Cairns, who yielded, not 
unwillingly, to the general wish. Lord Salisbury being 
one of the warmest of his solicitors. It was so in my 
own case. Lord Derby appointed me to the leader- 
ship, but the party chose to follow me, and the rest 
ensued. The same jealousy of interference with an 
arrangement in which their own feelings, and even 
tastes, should preeminently be consulted would, no 
doubt, be felt if the leadership of a House was to be 
decided by the votes of those who did not sit in it. 

"I make no doubt our friends in the House of Lords 
will in due season find a becoming chief, but our inter- 
position will not aid them. They will be better helped 
to a decision by events. 

"Yours sincerely, 

"B. Disraeli." 



Edward, fourteenth Earl of Derby — ("the Rupert 
of Debate" was a name given him in the old days 
when the then Lord Stanley was a Peelite and his 
future colleague the dethroner of Peel) — resigned the 
Premiership in the February of 1868. It was then 
that the Queen's summons to Disraeli to form a Gov- 
ernment was borne to him by his old opponent at High 
Wycombe, General Grey. The Times, noting the ad- 
vent of Disraeli to supreme power, paid a tribute to 

415 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

"the courage, the readiness, the unfailing temper" of 
Disraeli, who had '^reconstructed" the old Tory party, 
and thrice brought it into power. 

To Baron Tauclmitz. 

"HUGHENDEN MANOR, 

"September 2Srd, 1870. 
''What are called Lives of me abound. They are 
generally infamous libels, which I have invariably 
Lives of Him treated with utter indifference. Some- 
"infamous times I ask myself what will Grub Street 
Libels." ^Q after my departure — who will there be 

to abuse and caricature? ... I hope you are 
well. I am very busy, and rarely write letters, but I 
would not use the hand of another to an old friend." 

The books written about Disraeli — other than 
those written about Disraeli by Disraeli — make a 
little library in themselves. There is The Right Hon. 
Benjamin Disraeli, M.P.: A Literary and Political Biog- 
raphy, published by Mr. Thomas Macknight in 1854. 
Disraeli had issued his Lord George Bentinck: A Polit- 
ical Biography in a volume of similar size two years 
earlier. In the Macknight memoir we have a North 
of Ireland journalist, the most uncosmopolitan of 
men, writing of the most cosmopolitan. The book, 
angry all through, has its shifty foundations in the 
shiftiness of the hero of the navel of Disraeli's teens, 
Vivian Grey. Disraeli, said Macknight, was his own 
hero, Machiavelli in little. As well might George 
Eliot be identified with Hetty Sorrel: both were wom- 
en, and there is the independent testimony that 

416 




LORD BEACONSFIELD- 



From a carved ivory cameo 

Presented by Queen Victoria to her Lady of the Bedchamber 

Jane, Marchioness of Ely. 

By kind permission of Lady Marion Weller. 



LIVES OF HIM "INFAMOUS LIBELS ' 

every woman is at heart a rake. Of course Hetty on 
the scaffold — the important episode, after all — will be 
ignored by the ingenious commentator. The equal 
catastrophe of Vivian Grey's undisciplined ambitions 
is also left out of reckoning by these clamorous wit- 
nesses to the Grey-Disraeli identity. If it had been 
written in the first person, it could not have been 
more clear, they thought; indeed, the use of an alias 
was the very commonplace of guilty adventure. Those 
who suggest that Disraeli had not brought together 
two English statesmen by stratagem for his own pur- 
poses (he did not even know, when he wrote it, the 
Duke of Buckingham, his Marquis of Carabas) are told 
that dates are always juggled; and the averment that 
Disraeli was not present when Vivian Grey killed in 
a duel a former friend, nor when in a German forest 
he saved a Grand Duke, nor when, in a Grand Ducal 
palace he fell in love with a Princess who fell in love 
with him, nor when he ended his career in a wood in 
Bohemia, extorts the answer that any penny attorney 
can support an alibi. This is no travesty. Disraeli 
put so much of himself into his books that he is, of 
course, particularly vulnerable as a whipping-boy for 
the fools or knaves who form a small minority of his 
characters. So much of himself did he put there that 
if one said that he resembled Vivian Grey in that he 
had desperate ambitions, and was caged by circum- 
stance and felt he must somehow or other break the 
bar, the assumption should pass. As it stands, it rep- 
resents a method of slander of which the Young Gen- 
eration of to-day have before them no parallel, and 
28 417 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

which, in the domain of politics, was illustrated by 
Mr. Chamberlain's password into public life: "I do 
not think that Mr. Disraeli, if he tried, could speak 
the truth." ^ Many madmen — those actually in asy- 
lums — have been chased there by phantom Jesuits; 
and the deranged brains of Jesuits, I have heard, are 
similarly troubled with visions of exasperating Free- 
masons. The rage — no other word suffices — aroused 
by the very name of Disraeli, by the luck that he 
readily got readers for his novels, by his important 
presence in public life, transports one out of the ordi- 
nary regions of literary likes and dislikes, political 
leanings and aversions, into the chamber of the moral 
rack. Disraeli had no vendetta against the Inquisi- 
tion that had driven his fathers from "spell-bound 
Spain"; for he knew that the persecuting spirit, how- 
ever disguised in England, was not dead. The 
alien triumphed in the end; and the record of his 
triumph is pleasant to tell because it is also 
the exhaustion, for a long space to come, of the 
fires of political feud, the story of the education not 
only of a party in the ways of tolerance, but of the 
whole nation in a saving cosmopolitanism. If Disraeli 
bore his traducers no grudge, it would be superfluous 
indeed for true Dizzyites to bear them any. 

Years passed over the Macknight biography; then 
Mr. T. P. O'Connor followed suit; but the rather 
pompous rhetoric of the North of Ireland journalist 
gave way to true Celtic liveliness of narrative and that 

' This is not one of the sayings that come under the "What I have said, 
I have said " formula. For Mr. Chamberlain made a retraction. 

418 



LIVES OF HIM "INFAMOUS LIBELS ' 

pleasure in cudgeling which becomes positively con- 
tagious. As special pleading it is gay stuff — -the brief 
against Disraeli again loaded incriminatingly with 
quotations from the mouths of his characters, par- 
ticularly the villains. I have read and reread it, and 
lately read it again, which I rather gather the author 
himself has not done. Once when I complimented 
him on the pleasure he gave readers who most dis- 
agreed with him, he seemed to brush the book aside, 
as something of an early indiscretion; and we may 
well suppose that an author who has since become a 
Member of Parliament and has carried on successful 
guerilla warfare against the two great parties, offer- 
ing alliance first to one and then to the other, must 
now be able to appreciate the early Disraelian appeal 
to Radicals and Tories alike to help him with all hands 
to oust the Whigs. Bitter as the early O'Connor in- 
dictment of Disraeli is, the book is indispensable. It 
contains matter missing from all others; and it has 
the merit of being good reading from beginning to 
end. The book closes before its villain's death. All 
the same, it remains, in a hundred details, more com- 
plete than any of its successors. 

There is a story that Disraeli read Mr. O'Connor's 
book, complimented him on it (which would be like 
him), and said that had he himself written it he could 
have made it yet more damning. That is one of the 
innumerable similar stories told to illustrate the 
callous cynicism of Disraeli; there is a close version of 
it in the report given by another Irish member who 
made a speech attacking the sincerity of the Minister, 

419 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

which the Minister afterward congratulated him upon 
in the Lobby, saying that he could, had he known, 
have supplied him with points to put the case 
stronger. 

The bulky book which came years later from Mr. 
Algernon Foggo revives the Macknight legend, but 
misses the O'Connor breeziness. Disraeli is written 
of as an Evangelical street preacher might have writ- 
ten, fifty years ago, of Dr. Pusey. He is the Devil In- 
carnate; and if he does a good deed, or says a good 
thing (Disraeli was always saying good things, any- 
way); there is the handy hint at the appearance of 
Lucifer as an Angel of Light. Do Disraeli's friends, 
those at close quarters with him, proclaim his recti- 
tude — they do but give their man away; for was it 
not written that Antichrist should deceive the very 
elect? 

A book in defense, agreeable enough, bearing the 
title of Disraeli, the Author, Orator, and Statesman, was 
written by Mr. John Mill, and published in 1863. It 
was an anti-Macknight manifesto, and it still reads 
with a swing. From the grave of Lord Beaconsfleld 
a bouquet of biographies at once arose, friendly if not 
always exhilarating. Indeed, they were ostentatious- 
ly friendly, bulky after the manner of memorials, and 
"illustrated with permanent photographs." "An Ap- 
preciative Life of the Right Hon. the Earl of Beaconsfleld, 
a Statesman of Light and Leading; with Portraits of his 
Contemporaries, Edited by Cornelius Brown, F.R.S.L., 
Author of several Historical and Biographical 
Works" — so ran the commemorating tablet of the 

420 



LIVES OF HIM "INFAMOUS LIBELS" 

title-page of one such set of volumes. There were 
several of them: mostly monuments of clay-paper; 
with embossed backs of green or brown; also gilt 
edges. The "villa" population is said to be Tory; and 
such must be books a patent of respectability exposed 
upon the parlor table. Yet take up even such volumes, 
and though you pass over pages "impatient as the 
wind," you are suddenly caught up and "surprised 
with joy" at some phrase or sentiment of Disraeli's 
own. 

Mr. James Anthony Froude's shorter biography, 
contributed to "The Queen's Prime Ministers Series," 
if a book to be read, does not present a very sufficing 
nor convincing study, nor does it show its author at 
his high-tide of style. But it is a notable book for all 
that. It marks a turning-point in the national judg- 
ment — a turning-point long before reached by the 
Queen. Mr. Froude, who had been as the man in the 
street in his attitude of mistrust for Disraeli, when 
he came face to face with many a fiction that had 
passed into currency as fact, frankly gave it the go- 
by; and if he did not heartily bless, he cursed not at 
all. To Sir Theodore Martin he confessed that, on 
nearer view, Disraeli's features changed; and it was 
in no cynical sense that he put upon his title-page 

the motto: 

He was a man ; take him for all in all, 
We shall not look upon his like again. 

Also of a series, "The Statesmen Series," and also 
valuable is Mr. T. E. Kebbel's volume. Again, in 
"The Victorian Era Series," we get Mr. Harold Gorst's 

421 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

The Earl of Beaconsfield. It is eagerly political, with 
the result that the Disraeli of the Library is merged in 
the Disraeli of the Arena; and that is as though we 
saw him on a high wall with the ladder suddenly 
taken away and he left bewildered aloft. The hand 
of the Fourth Party — ^the existence of which was one 
of the symptoms of Disraeli's withdrawal from the 
Treasury Bench, and something of a compensating 
one — is felt here and there as directing the younger 
pen, which is also a candid pen, not written to copy. 
Yet no weak points in the Disraelian armor are here 
found; and I have heard Mr. Harold Gorst say that, 
though he followed hound-like on the scent indicated 
by the foes of Disraeli, he came on no quarry; hardly 
had he, I suspect, a decent run. He said in effect: I 
found no fault in the man. I like to add a mention of a 
little booklet — published in Appleton's "New Handy- 
Volume Series" — Beaconsfield, by George Makepeace 
Towle. This is remarkable because it was published 
so long ago — in 1879 — that Disraeli may himself have 
seen it, and yet it was animated by that spirit of toler- 
ance, discrimination, and justice, which other brief 
American biographies, many of them no longer than 
magazine articles, have since displayed, in advance 
and in reproach of England. France, too has given 
us studies which show him well in perspective at the 
further range. 

Also, before the curtain fell on Lord Beaconsfield, 
Mr. Francis Hitchman's Ptiblic Life of the Earl of Bea- 
consfield made its appearance, doing justice and deal- 
ing sympathy to the politician, who must have read it 

422 



LIVES OF HIM "INFAMOUS LIBELS" 

with pleasure, and seen in it an auspice tliat the day 
of the infamous libels was done. 

Happy Mr. Hitchman! more happy Mr. W. E. 
Henley, envied as the writer of understanding notices 
of Endymion that fell under Dizzy's eye, and let him 
see that the Younger Generation heard his call. Mr. 
Hitchman's book passed through revised editions 
after Disraeli's death, and it abides as a useful work 
of historical reference in the midst of the multitude 
of recollections and personal impressions since pub- 
lished by various more or less friendly hands. Among 
these is that — the most promising and therefore the 
most disappointing — by Sir William Eraser, a Dizzy- 
ite, not so much by faith as by the persuasion of facts; 
an old Eton boy who seemed inclined to measure 
Coningsby by the "the" put before "Carfax" ("no Eton 
boy would do that"); a spectator at many Disraelian 
feasts, but a lean recorder of them; a story-teller who 
omits the story's point, where mere reference to 
Hansard would have recalled it to his mind; a man, 
in short, who had not learned from Sir Vavasour that 
a baronet has some inexplicable tendency to become 
a bore. Happily, not even "the far-off look" in the 
Chief's eye when his supporter arpproached him in the 
Carlton led him to suspect in himself the possession 
of that rather patronizing and commonplace disposi- 
tion which his book proclaims aloud to us. It is a 
medley of missed opportunities. All Dizzyites, how- 
ever, use as well as abuse the bulky budget of mod- 
erately good, rather doubtful, and quite impossible 
things to be found in Dis7~aeli and his Day; and Sir 

423 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

William has therefore his niche near at hand, if not 
in the inmost shrine. 

Of the many other writers of ability on various 
aspects of Disraeli's career whose contributions have 
made many a month's magazines interesting, may be 
gratefully named Mr. Alfred Austin, Mr. Frederick 
Greenwood, Mr. Saintsbury, Mr. James Sykes, Mr. J. 
Henry Harris (a storehouse of facts about Lady 
Beaconsfield), Mr. Bryce, Mr. Brewster, Mr. Childers, 
Mr. Zangwill, Mr. Escott, Mr. Walter Sichel, Mr. 
Frederic Harrison, and Mr. Frewen Lord. The rough 
path to any shrine is made all the smoother for the 
pilgrim of to-day by the pilgrims, however light- 
heeled, of all the yesterdays. The succeeding writer 
(in point of time) must give them gratitude on that; 
nor can he forget that it is often the least, not the 
greatest, who comes last in a procession. 

In a note written from 19 Curzon Street, January 
20, 1881, Lord Beaconsfield acknowledges a little 
present made to him by Baron Tauchnitz at the time 
of the publication of Endymion: "The beautiful vase 
has arrived, and quite safely. It is a most gracious 
and gratifying gift; and I accept it in the full spirit 
of friendship in which it is offered. ... I no 
longer dwell in the house in Park Lane where I once 
had the pleasure of receiving you, but I am very near.'^ 

Sir William Fraser once noticed on the drawing- 
room table at Grosvenor Gate a complete set of the 
Tauchnitz edition of Disraeli's works. Presuming on 
the safety which generally attends any sort of depre- 
ciation of a publisher. Sir William said: "Does not 

424 



TENNYSON 

that annoy you?" Disraeli (who had satirized nearly 
every class except the publishers, and who once 
thought of a partnership with Moxon for himself) re- 
plied: "No; on the contrary, I am flattered. The 
Baron sent them to me himself." Disraeli had the 
sense to perceive, as somebody has well said, that the 
Baron was not only the godfather of English litera- 
ture upon the Continent, but the inventor of a format^ 
and the pioneer of international property in books. 
The German Baron corresponded in English — with 
apologies. "Don't be afraid of your English," Thack- 
eray once reassured him; "a letter containing £ is 
always in a pretty style." 



To Alfred Tennyson, Poet Laureate. 

' 'Bournemouth, 

"Beeemher 20th, 1874. 

"Dear Mr. Tennyson: A Government should 
recognize intellect. It elevates and sustains the 
spirit of a nation. But it is an office not 
ennyson. ^^^^ ^^ fulfil, for if it falls iuto favoritism 
and the patronage of mediocrity, instead of raising 
the national sentiment it might degrade and debase 
it. Her Majesty, by the advice of her Minister, has 
testified in the Arctic expedition, and will in other 
forms, her sympathy with science. But it is desirable 
that the claims of high letters should be equally ac- 
knowledged. This is not so easy a matter, because 
it is in the nature of things that the test of merit can 
not be so precise in literature as in science. Neverthe- 
less, there are some living names, however few, which 
I would fain believe will reach posterity, and yours is 
among the foremost. I should be glad, therefore, if 

425 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

agreeable to yourself, to submit your name to the 
Queen for the distinction of a baronetcy, so that, by 
an hereditary honor, there may always be a living 
memorial of the appreciation of your genius by your 
countrymen. Have the kindness to inform me of your 
feelings on this subject; I shall remain here to Jan- 
uary 4th, after that it will be best to direct to me at 
10 Downing Street, Whitehall. 

"I have the honor to remain, dear Mr. Tennyson, 
faithfully yours, 

"B. Disraeli." 



Once Cardinal Lavigerie, the great Central African 
^'White Missionary," spoke to me of a plan of evangeli- 
zation which was his, but which Leo. XIII., the Uni- 
versal Father, had furthered for him before all the 
universe. I, in return, spoke to the Cardinal of the 
plan as his own; and never shall I forget the generous 
gesture with which he declared: "No, no; no longer 
mine; it is not etiquette to speak of suggesting any- 
thing to a Pontiff: what he adopts, that he initiates." 
On this principle, no doubt, Hallam, Lord Tennyson, 
in the biography of his father, thus schedules this let- 
ter: "On December 20th, the Queen, through Mr. Dis- 
raeli, offered my father a baronetcy." The initiation, 
in the ordinary sense of the word, was obviously the 
Minister's. As Tennyson was still labeled "Liberal," 
the offer was apart from political purpose; nor was 
Disraeli's personal acquaintance with the Laureate 
more than a nominal one. In some senses, therefore, 
the offer was a more significant one than that which 
had come earlier from Mr. Gladstone; or even than 

426 



TENNYSON 

that which succeeded, in all senses, when later Mr. 
Gladstone's bait (and the angled-for poet) rose to a 
barony. Meanwhile, Tennyson, like any other man 
who is being bid for, was not averse from a bargain. 
He therefore, while declining for himself, was willing 
to say "yes" for somebody else. We are not given the 
exact terms of the letter, and that is a loss; but the 
upshot was that Mr. Gladstone had made the offer 
before, that it had been declined, but that the promise 
of it for the son, after his father's death, would be 
gratefully accepted. With this, apparently, went the 
hint that Mr. Gladstone was not unwilling to be so 
far obliging. Disraeli replied that such a course was 
contrary to all precedent; and the poet, accepting the 
assurance, owned that Gladstone did not "pledge 
himself to anything contrary to precedent, as he 
expressly stated." Poets, who may be smiled at 
for condescending to become "Sirs" and "Lords," are 
difficult. And when Gladstone (not without some 
sense of the pricking spur of Disraeli's overture) made 
the offer of a barony, a barony was accepted, not, we 
were assured, as a compliment to the poet, no, not 
even to the son (who has since taken his own rank and 
station in men's minds, for that matter), but as an 
uplifting for Literature. 

We smile; not at the elevation of a poet, but rather 
at the hedging and fencing set about the acceptance 
of it at too self-conscious Aldworth and Faringford. 
Disraeli believed that titles would perish if they were 
left to represent only material wealth; and the offer 
of a peerage from one who believed in the House of 

427 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

Lords as a great constitutional engine may be held^ 
1 think, in higher regard than the offer from another 
who took the House of Lords because it was there, 
thought it a national burden rather than a national 
asset, and was willing to perpetuate a social caste for 
the gratification of personal vanities — ignoble indeed. 
In brief, Disraeli did not confer honors on genius so 
much as he conferred genius upon honors. Very 
early in life Disraeli told the story of a visit he paid 
to Munich, which I choose to retell here because it is 
instinct with this sense of "the aristocracy of genius," 
and of the elevation which a great man confers on his 
age. Most people (myself among the number) may 
disagree with Disraeli's estimate of "Old Lewis" of 
Bavaria, and of his work in his capital; but we need 
not here confound the matter of policy with the 
matter of taste. The passage occurs in Heath's Booh 
of Beauty (18^1): 

"The destiny of nations appears to have decreed 
that a society should periodically, though rarely^ 
flourish, characterized by its love of the Fine Arts, 
and its capacity of ideal creation. These occasional 
and brilliant ebullitions of human invention elevate 
the race of man;^ they purify and chasten the taste 
of succeeding generations; and posterity accepts 
them as the standard of what is choice, and the model 
of what is excellent. 

"Classic Greece and Christian Italy stand out in 

1 The opening phrasing of the letter to Tennyson seems an echo of these 
words, written thirty-five years before. This very common Disraeli continu- 
ity of ideas marks the early maturity of his tastes ; while his later acts re- 
deem the pledges implied in his earlier words. 

428 



TENNYSON 

our universal annals as the epochs of the Arts. Dur- 
ing the last two centuries, while manners have under- 
gone a rapid transition, while physical civilization has 
advanced in an unprecedented degree, and the appli- 
cation of science to social life has diverted the minds 
of men from other pursuits, the Fine Arts have 
decayed and vanished. 

"I wish to call the attention of my countrymen to 
another great movement in the creative mind of Eu- 
rope; one yet young and little recognized, but not 
inferior, in my opinion, either to that of Athens or 
of Florence. 

"It was on a cloudless day of the autumn of last 
year, that I found myself in a city that seemed almost 
visibly rising beneath my eye. The street in which I 
stood was of noble dimensions, and lined on each side 
with palaces or buildings evidently devoted to public 
purposes. Few were completely finished: the sculptor 
was working at the statues that adorned their fronts ; 
the painter was still touching the external frescoes; 
and the scaffold of the architect was not in every in- 
stance withdrawn. Everywhere was the hum of art 
and artists. The Byzantine style of many of these 
buildings was novel to me in its modern adaptation, 
yet very effective. The delicate detail of ornament 
contrasted admirably with the broad fronts and noble 
facades which they adorned. A church with two very 
lofty towers of white marble, with their fretted cones 
relieved with cerulean blue, gleamed in the sun; and 
near it was a pile not dissimilar to the ducal palace 
at Venice, but of nobler and more beautiful propor- 

429 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

tions, with its portal approached by a lofty flight of 
steps, and guarded by the colossal statues of poets 
and philosophers — suitably guarded, for it was the 
National Library. 

"As I advanced, I found myself in squares and cir- 
cuses, in every instance adorned by an obelisk of 
bronze or the equestrian statue of some royal hero. 
I observed a theater with a lofty Corinthian portico, 
and a pediment brilliantly painted in fresco with de- 
signs appropriate to its purpose; an Ionic museum of 
sculpture, worthy to enshrine the works of a Phidias 
or a Praxiteles; and a palace for the painter, of which 
I was told the first stone had been rightly laid on the 
birthday of Raffaelle. But what struck me most in 
this city, more than its galleries, temples, and palaces, 
its magnificent buildings, splendid paintings, and con- 
summate statues, was the all-pervading presence and 
all-inspiring infiuence of living and breathing Art, In 
every street, a school: the atelier of the sculptor open, 
the studio of the painter crowded: devoted pupils, 
aspiring rivals: enthusiasm, emulation, excellence. 
Here the long-lost feudal art of coloring glass redis- 
covered; there fresco-painting entirely revived, and 
on the grandest scale; while the ardent researches of 
another man of genius successfully analyzes the en- 
caustic tinting of Herculaneum, and secures the 
secret process for the triumph of modern Art. I be- 
held a city such as I had mused over amid the crum- 
bling fanes of Pericles, or, aided alike by memory and 
fancy, had conjured up in the palaces and gardens 
of the Medici. 

430 



TENNYSON 

"Sucla is Munich, a city which, half a century ago, 
was the gross and corrupt capital of a barbarous and 
brutal people.^ Baron Reisbech, who visited Bavaria 
in 1780, describes the Court of Munich as one not at 
all more advanced than those of Lisbon and Madrid. 
A good-natured prince, fond only of show and think- 
ing only of the chase; an idle, dissolute, and useless 
nobility; the nomination to offices depending on wom- 
en and priests; the aristocracy devoted to play, and 
the remainder of the inhabitants immersed in scan- 
dalous debauch. 

"With these recollections of the past, let us enter 
the palace of the present sovereign. With habits of 
extreme simplicity, and a personal expenditure rigidly 
economical, the residence of the King of Bavaria, 
when completed, will be the most extensive and the 
most sumptuous palace in the world. But, then, it is 
not merely the palace of a king: it is a temple ded- 
icated to the genius of a nation. The apartments of 
state, painted in fresco on the grandest scale, bold 
in design, splendid in color, breathe the very Teutonic 
soul. The subjects are taken from the Nihelungen Lied, 
the Gothic epic, and commemorate all the achieve- 
ments of the heroic Siegfried, and all the adventures 
of the beautiful Brunhilde. The heart of a German 
beats as he gazes on the forms and scenes of the 
Teutonic Iliad; as he beholds Haghen the fierce, and 

' The visitor to Munich to-day deplores, on the contrary, the destruction 
of the Teutonic city and its transition into sham Italian. The Renaissance 
had its great Masters ; but not such were the painters and sculptors who con- 
trived in Munich this after-pop of the great sixteenth- century boom. 

431 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

Dankwart the swift; Volker, the minstrel knight, and 
the beautiful and haughty Brunhilda. But in point 
of harmonious dimension and august beauty, no 
chamber is perhaps more imposing than the Kaiser 
Saal, or Hall of the Sovereigns. It is, I should think, 
considerably above one hundred feet in length, broad 
and lofty in exact proportion. Its roof is supported 
on either side by columns of white marble; the inter- 
columniations filled by colossal statues, of gilded 
brass, of the electors and kings of the country. Seat- 
ed on his throne, at the end of this imperial chamber, 
Lewis of Bavaria is surrounded by the solemn majesty 
of his ancestors. These statues are by Schwanthaler, 
a sculptor who to the severe and classic taste and 
profound sentiment of his master, Thorwaldsen, 
unites an exuberance of invention which has filled 
Munich with the greatest works since Phidias. Corne- 
lius, Julius Schnorr, and Hess are the principal 
painters who have covered the galleries, churches, and 
palaces of Munich with admirable frescoes. The cele- 
brated Klenze is known throughout Europe as the 
first of living architects, and the favorite of his sov- 
ereign when that sovereign did not wear a crown; 
but we must not forget the name of Gartner, the arch- 
itect who has revived the Byzantine style of building 
with such admirable effect, 

"But it was in the private apartments of the king 
that I was peculiarly impressed with the supreme 
genius of Schwanthaler. These chambers, eight in 
number, are painted in encaustic, with subjects from 
the Greek poets, of which Schwanthaler supplied the 

432 




LORD BEACONSFIELD. 
From the bust by Sir Edgar Boehm at Windsor Castle. 



TENNYSON 

designs. The antechambers are devoted to Orpheus 
and Hesiod, and the ornaments are in the oldest Greek 
style; severely simple; archaic, but not rude; the fig- 
ures of the friezes in outline, and without relief. The 
saloon of reception, on the contrary, is Homeric; and 
in its coloring, design, and decoration, as brilliant, as 
free, and as flowing as the genius of the great Mseo- 
nian. The chamber of the throne is entirely adorned 
with white bas-reliefs, raised on a ground of dead 
gold; the subjects Pindaric; not inferior in many in- 
stances to the Attic remains; and characterized, at 
the same time, by a singular combination of vigor and 
grace. Another saloon is devoted to ^schylus, and 
the library to Sophocles. The gay, wild muse of Aris- 
tophanes laughs and sings in his majesty's dressing- 
room; while the king is lulled to slumber by the 
Sicilian melodies and the soothing landscapes of 
Theocritus. 

"Of these chambers, I should say that they were a 
perfect creation of Art. The rooms themselves are 
beautifully proportioned; the subjects of their decora- 
tions are the most interesting in every respect that 
could be selected; and the purity, grace, and invention 
of the designs are only equaled by their coloring, at 
the same time the most brilliant and harmonious that 
can be conceived; and the rich fancy of the arabesques 
and other appropriate decorations, which blend with 
,all around, and heighten the effect of the whole. 
Yet they find no mean rivals in the private chambers 
of the queen, decorated in an analogous style, but en- 
tirely devoted to the poets of her own land. The Min- 
29 433 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

nesingers occupy her first apartments, but the bril- 
liant saloon is worthy of Wieland, whose Oberon 
forms its frieze; while the bedchamber gleams with 
the beautiful forms and pensive incidents Of Goethe's 
esoteric pen. Schiller has filled the study with his 
stirring characters and his vigorous incidents. Groups 
from Wallenstein and Wilhelm Tell form the rich and 
unrivaled ceiling; while the fight of the dragon and 
the founding of the bell, the innocent Fridolin, the in- 
spired maiden of Orleans, breathe in the compart- 
ments of the walls. 

"When I beheld these refined creations, and re- 
called the scenes and sights of beauty that had moved 
before me in my morning's wanderings, I asked my- 
self how Munich, recently so Boeotian, had become the 
capital of modern Art; and why a country of limited 
resources, in a brief space, and with such facility and 
completeness, should have achieved those results 
which had so long and utterly eluded the desires of 
the richest and most powerful community in the 
world? 

"It is the fashion of the present age to underrate 
the influence of individual character. For myself, I 
have ever rejected this consolation of mediocrity. I 
believe that everything that is great has been accom- 
plished by great men. It is not what I witnessed at 
Munich, or know of its sovereign, that should make 
me doubt the truth of my conviction. Munich is the 
creation of its king, and Lewis of Bavaria is not only 
a king, but a poet. A poet on a throne has realized 
his dreams." 

434 



THOMAS CARLYLE 

Disraeli's saying that of Science we may have an 
exactitude of appreciation not obtainable in the case 
of the Arts perhaps represents some misgivings about 
his own taste. If so, that doubt might in later years 
get confirmation if he ever reread this early sketch, 
charged, as it is, with local and temporary enthu- 
siasm. 

Disraeli, generous in offering distinctions, was 
economical in his phrasing, which the following letter 
Thomas ^iid ^^^ Tennyson letter repeat in the 

Cariyie. fl^st passage. At the end of that passage 

we get Disraeli's distinction between a "great" poet 
and a "real" one. 

To Thomas Carlyle. 

{Confidential) "Bournemouth, 

"December 27th, 1874 

"Sir: A Government should recognize intellect. 
It elevates and sustains the tone of a nation. But it 
is an office which adequately to fulfil requires both 
courage and discrimination, as there is a chance of 
falling into favoritism and patronizing mediocrity, 
which, instead of elevating the national feeling, would 
eventually degrade or debase it. In recommending 
her Majesty to fit out an Arctic Expedition, and in 
suggesting other measures of that class, her Govern- 
ment have shown their sympathy with Science; and 
they wish that the position of High Letters should be 
equally acknowledged; but this is not so easy, because 
it is in the necessity of things that the test of merit 
can not be so precise in literature as in science. When 
I consider the literary world, I see only two living 
names which I would fain believe will be remembered, 

435 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

and they stand out in uncontested superiority. One 
is that of a poet — if not a great poet, a real one; the 
other is your own. 

"I have advised the Queen to offer to confer a 
baronetcy on Mr. Tennyson, and the same distinction 
should be at your command if you liked it; but I have 
remembered that, like myself, you are childless, and 
may not care for hereditary honors. I have, there- 
fore, made up my mind, if agreeable to yourself, to 
recommend to her Majesty to confer on you the 
highest distinction for merit at her command, one 
which, I believe, has never yet been conferred by her 
except for direct services to the State, and that is the 
Grand Order of the Bath. 

"I will speak with frankness on another point. It 
is not well that in the sunset of your life you should 
be disturbed by common cares. I see no reason why 
a great author should not receive from the nation a 
pension, as well as a lawyer or statesman. Unfor- 
tunately, the personal power of her Majesty in this 
respect is limited; but still, it is in the Queen's 
capacity to settle on an individual an amount equal 
to a good Fellowship, which was cheerfully accepted 
and enjoyed by the great spirit of Johnson and the 
pure integrity of Southey. 

"Have the goodness to let me know your feelings 
on these subjects. 

"I have the honor to remain, sir, your faithful 
servant, 

"B. Disraeli." 

Carlyle's reply betrays — nay, openly expresses — 
the pleasure which he had in receiving the offer — and 
in declining it. "Yesterday," he wrote to the Prime 
Minister from Chelsea, "to my great surprise, I had 

436 



THOMAS CARLYLE 

the honor to receive your letter containing a magnifi- 
cent proposal for my benefit, which will be memora- 
ble to me for the rest of my life. Allow me to say that 
the letter, both in purport and expression, is worthy 
to be called magnanimous and noble, that it is with- 
out example in my own poor history; and I think it is 
unexampled, too, in the history of governing persons 
toward men of letters at the present, or at any time; 
and that I will carefully preserve it as one of the 
things precious to memory and heart. A real treasure 
or benefit it, independent of all results from it." 

He then goes on to his refusal: "Except the feel- 
ing of your fine and noble conduct on this occasion, 
which is a real and permanent possession, there can 
not anything be done that would not now be a sorrow 
rather than a pleasure." 

To others, Carlyle wrote in a strain of equal ela- 
tion. The Disraeli he had despised became by this 
recognition of Carlyle much less of "a poor creature" 
than he had been reckoned heretofore. The Minister's 
generosity was again commented upon, as something 
unexpected. Had he, one wonders, imagined that 
Disraeli bore a grudge against him as the overwhelm- 
ing victor in a conquest for the Lord Rectorship at 
Edinburgh? The sage began, it seems, to conceive of 
a Disraeli who should be judged by ordinary stand- 
ards; and he even reproaches himself for his past pos- 
sible misreadings. This one case is typical of a good 
many more cases in which the attitude of Disraeli's 
contemporaries toward him underwent a change on 
the possession of nearer knowledge. To this revolu- 

437 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

tion even the Throne succumbed. Colleagues in the 
Cabinet needed and sought this salvation until they 
were able to say in the words of Sir Stafford North- 
cote: ''Those who did know and love him, loved him 
very much." 

Disraeli was, however, difhcult enough to know. 
His life was absorbed by duties that all but confined 
him to Parliament, and indeed to the Front Bench, in 
office or opposition. This is one reason why we get 
so few friendly glimpses of Disraeli in the memoirs of 
his time. Yet a man of his time in all essentials he 
was. His literary style, for example, he inherited 
from his father, with a flavoring from Voltaire, an 
author who shared with Plato a supreme influence 
over different periods of his youth. The eighteenth 
century stilts of daily prose he did not cast wholly 
away all his life, lest his feet should fail him, as in- 
deed in verse they did. If Byron helped him to a 
certain freedom, that very emancipation brought its 
limitations. He did not receive Wordsworth into his 
heart; from Rossetti, poet or painter, he had no real 
illumination. The terms of his letter are a denial of 
front rank to Patmore, to Browning, to Euskin, to 
Swinburne; also to Matthew Arnold, who, neverthe- 
less, said of Disraeli that he was the only statesman 
of the day sensible of "the spell of Literature." If 
Disraeli had a mission of reconciliation between 
Christians and Jews, and has left a Testament not yet 
fully pondered over by the members of either his own 
race or ours, still, the mere fact that he was an alien 
and that throughout his career in the Commons he 

438 



THOMAS CARLYLE 

bore a Jewish name (taken for the very reason that 
it might be forever recognized) kept aloof from him 
the leaders of religious thought. Bishops looked on 
him with suspicion, even Samuel Wilberforce, who 
had a sense of wit, and was, Disraeli found, "always 
good company" as a guest. To Evangelical Lord 
Shaftesbury Disraeli was as great an "enigma" as 
Isaac D'Israeli had been to his own business-like 
father — a sort of puppet to be moved by Lord Shaftes- 
bury's prayers, or, if those were not effectual, a brand 
not plucked from the burning. High Church Lord 
Selborne saw in him no more than "an actor with a 
mask he never tore off." Mr. Browning, who loved 
liberty of thought and even tolerated license of act 
in his companioned outlook from Oasa Guidi windows, 
had a sectarian flout for "Beaconsfield the Jew." The 
poet of shrewdness and "detection" was at least im- 
partial in his detestation of the Hebrews and the 
monks; but with that sardonic temper Disraeli had 
no affinities. He was supple enough, if hearsay be 
trusted, to introduce himself to Browning at an 
Academy Banquet — one more illustration of his tol- 
erance in recognitions. To Carlyle himself, Disraeli 
supplied the touchstone of tolerance; and the Jew 
taunt came at once to the pen that had been loudest 
in praise of Old Testament methods under Cromwell. 
Disraeli, who had learned cosmopolitanism from 
the vicissitudes of his ancestors, and had it, so to say, 
in his blood, could not be exx^lusive in his dealings 
with nations or persons. He would not hound down 
the Turk in continuance of an historical vendetta. He 

439 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

would not see Ireland, with his young eyes, through 
English spectacles — he would have it governed, he 
said, according to Stuart and not according to Crom- 
wellian traditions. He would not judge of Chartism 
by its excesses, nor yet turn on individuals with de- 
rision. There again was the barrier between him and 
Carlyle. He distrusted, as evidence of any possession 
of heroic virtue, that easy scorn of others — the least 
pardonable form of egotism — which passed for wis- 
dom in Chelsea; and the Memoirs, which he lived to 
see published, confirmed his faith in good-nature and 
his doubt of scorn. It was by his habit of even-hand- 
edness that he made Carlyle reconsider his estimate 
of Disraeli as "a superlative Hebrew conjurer." Car- 
lyle wrote on the "horny-handed brother"; Disraeli 
placed in that hand a vote; and Carlyle despaired. 
The same note of callous derision, differently applied 
by Thackeray, had the unique effect of almost exclud- 
■ ing that author from the otherwise unlimited charity 
of Disraeli; for Universalism itself excludes from its 
scope one Son of Perdition. Those who seek and find 
in Codlingsby a cause of the estrangement have little 
appreciation of either literary satire or Disraeli's 
disregard of it. The only other person with whom, 
in the end, Disraeli lost patience — and the reason 
seems intelligible — was his Vavasour of Tancred, the 
first Lord Houghton. 

If Disraeli did not hail the theory of Evolution 
(which, part in prophecy, part in perversity, he had 
ridiculed years before its coming), he did not dogma- 
tize against it in the fashion of the Tory editor of the 

440 



, THOMAS CARLYLE 

Quarterly, who said ex cathedra that "it was practically 
synonymous with infidelity." This Whitwell Elwin, 
one recalls, had been equally unreceptive to Disraeli 
on his first appearing. He thought the "new spirit" 
synonymous with Radicalism. Confronted with Dar- 
win, Disraeli ranged himself "on the side of the 
angels." In his own department, in politics, he was 
a consistent Evolutionist throughout. And he made 
his own discoveries and inventions — he made his 
Queen an Empress; and from the agricultural serf he 
sought to evolve the peasant. The slaves of the mines 
and the factories — some of them the young children 
whose "cry" Mrs. Browning sent echoing through 
England, till it was heard above the owners' counter- 
cry of the "sacred freedom of contract" — he helped 
to free. He invented, amid laughter that is echoless 
to-day, the "Conservative working man." Together 
with his kindred spirits of Young England, he plead- 
ed, again amid derision from the champions of "free- 
dom of contract," for National Holidays, which be- 
came law later, when some one had the wit — or the 
understood and welcomed want of it — to call them, 
not National, but "Bank." He advocated also, and 
also amid ridicule, those sports on the village green 
uniting classes, which have since made all England 
a playground. He cried Sanitas! Sanitas! Sanitas! at 
election times — a pioneer indeed; and his constant 
reminder, "I do not see what is the use of there being 
gentlemen unless they are the leaders of the people," 
began that return of men of station to civic duty — 
his own Lothair, as luck had it, setting the example 

441 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

of a marquis serving as a mayor. And when Lord 
Eosebery speaks of the "efficiency" possible if the 
successful ruler of his own trade things were made 
ruler over the nation's great things, he does but put 
into words what Disraeli put into acts when Mr. W. 
H. Smith was translated to the Treasury Bench. 

And in each one of these experiments, justified 
by time, he had from a large section of his country- 
men not only no encouragement, but not even the 
tribute of reasoned opposition. He had instead this 
derision, which was too ignoble to be called scorn, 
this complacent ridicule of which Carlyle was the 
master. He was the "superlative Hebrew conjurer," 
and John Bull was reviled because he let "this Jew 
jump upon his stomach." The humor, like the 
rhetoric, of one generation is the weariness of an- 
other; even Disraeli's rhetoric palls. But the derision 
of one generation does not last longer than its humor 
or its rhetoric; and we are all but free now in our 
public life and in our newspapers from the self- 
sufficient ribaldry which held its sway over the 
greater part of the Victorian era. Carlyle stood for 
that; Disraeli for tolerance, for understanding. Here 
we see these protagonists face to face; and it is now 
Carlyle who seems to look another way, in search, 
perhaps of a new heaven, and a new earth. 



442 



BERESFORD HOPE 

"To all to whom these Presents shall come: the Right 
Honorable Benjamin Disraeli sendeth greeting.^' So began 
Beresford the notification that honorary office had 
Hope. been assigned to a member of Parlia- 

ment who desired to vacate his seat, as Mr. Beres- 
ford Hope did in 1868, when he left one con- 
stituency for another — that other being Cambridge 
University, which he successfully carried. He was 
not a loyal supporter of Disraeli, to whom, never- 
theless, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, he had 
to apply for the oflflce that freed him from the seat 
he already held. All people have heard of these 
^'Presents," but few, even among seasoned Parlia- 
mentarians, have actually handled them. I quote 
from the MS. of the document issued to Beresford 
Hope: 

"Know ye that I, the said Benjamin Disraeli, have 
constituted and appointed, and by these Presents do 
constitute and appoint, Alexander J, B. Beresford 
Hope to be Steward and Bailiff of the Manor of North- 
stead, in the County of York, with the returns of all 
writs, and warrants, and executions of the same, in 
the room and place of George Poulett Scrope, whose 
constitution to the said offices I do hereby revoke and 
determine, together with all wages, fees, allowances, 
and other privileges and preeminences whatsoever to 
the said offices of Steward and Bailiff belonging or in 
any wise appertaining, with full power and authority 
to hold and keep courts, and to do all and every other 
Act and Acts, thing and things, which to the said 
offices of Steward and Bailiff of the Manor aforesaid 
do belong or in any wise appertain. In witness 
whereof" (and of a superfluous more) "I have here- 

443 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

unto set my hand and seal the 12th day of February 
in the 31st year of the Reign of Her Majesty Queen 
Victoria, and in the year of Our Lord One Thousand 
Eight Hundred and Sixty-Eight. 
'^Signed and delivered 

in the presence of 

Montagu Corry. "B. Disraeli." 

Strange were the relations between Disraeli and 
Beresford Hope, a member of the (rather disunited) 
family of the Hopes of Amsterdam, who brought their 
fortunes (and misfortunes) to London; and to one of 
whom, Henry Hope of Deepdene, Disraeli dedicated 
Coningshy, conceived in those Surrey glades which, 
close by, at Boxhill, were to be the scene of Mr. George 
Meredith's later creations. Alexander Beresford 
Hope was of the group hostile to his leader; and that 
hostility was not diminished by his marriage with 
Lady Mildred Cecil, a sister of Lord Robert Cecil, later 
known as Disraeli's colleague and critic-on-the-hearth, 
Lord Cranborne (afterward Marquis of Salisbury). 
As the uncle of Mr. Arthur Balfour, the leader to be, 
Beresford Hope has a certain further interest for us 
who, knowing what we now know, take a long retro- 
spect. As the owner of the Saturday Review also, 
Beresford Hope had an influence which Disraeli felt 
weekly turned against himself, both as man and as 
Reformer. The High Church Movement was so near 
his heart that to Gladstone, who often walked in early 
days from the Albany to worship in the Church of All 
Saints, Margaret Street, which Beresford Hope built, 
he gave a greater trust than he ever accorded to 

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his own leader. One famous sparring match — only 
^'match" is not the word — that passed between them 
in the House is of inevitable quotation. That was 
when, in 1867, Beresford Hope declared that "al- 
though a Conservative, he would never fall down and 
worship the golden image set up in the deserts of 
Arabia," and that, dissolution or no dissolution, "he, 
for one, would, with his whole heart and conscience, 
vote against the Asian Mystery." The uncouthness of 
the allusions was accompanied by an uncouthness of 
gesture and of general appearance — the uncouthness 
which seems always at its awkwardest in a long- 
bearded man. Quite unperturbed was Disraeli's reply 
to "his honorable friend," whose style, he said, "is very 
ornamental in discussion, and when he talks to me 
of Asian Mystery I may reply to him by an allusion 
to Batavian grace." The Holland origin of this imita- 
tive brother-in-law of "the master of taunts and 
gibes," and the unwieldy gestures which, an hour be- 
fore, had accompanied his indictment, made Disraeli's 
an instant hit; and ever since that day Dutch 
courage has found in Batavian grace gay company in 
our language. The great division which followed 
showed Gladstone's amendments to Disraeli's Keform 
Bill beaten by twenty-one votes. 

It was a scene of wild excitement, for it marked 
the triumph of Disraeli over th.e foes of his own 
household; handkerchiefs and hats were waved, salvo 
after salvo of cheers were discharged, on the princi- 
ple, long established in the Island, that a noise, and 
generally a discordant one, is essential to the con- 

445 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

summation of all great events and to the marking of 
all great emotions. The Chancellor of the Exchequer 
sat silent, and would have sat motionless, but that 
members crowded about him, shaking him by the 
hand. "The working of his face," said an eye-witness, 
"alone showed how tremendous had been the strain 
of the last few hours." 

Beresford Hope did not confine to the House of 
Commons his expressions of discontent under Dis- 
raeli's leadership. Four years earlier Lord John Man- 
ners, between whom and Hope there was a kinship of 
Church interests, addressed to him, in a letter now 
before me, a reproof such as one expects and wel- 
comes from him who was always loyal to Disraeli. 
"Your Church Kate speech I received, read, and en- 
tirely disapproved of. The existence of a Church, 
apart from the Tory party, is a chimera; and the 
hardly disguised attack upon Disraeli, the acknowl- 
edged leader of the Tory party in the House of Com- 
mons, at once repels from you all who follow his lead. 
I had hoped, when you came forward for the Uni- 
versity, that all such feelings were forever abandoned, 
and that you had enlisted fairly under Lord Derby's 
banner. The time for hair-splitting and wire-drawing 
has passed away; and unless Churchmen are prepared 
to support the Tory leaders they must make up 
their minds to lose. all power and influence in public 
affairs." 

That frank avowal did not frightien Beresford 
Hope into line. Through my hands have passed a 
number of letters written by him both before and 

446 



BERESFORD HOPE 

after this date to a friend of his in Germany, Dr. 
Reichensperger, one of the Center leaders in the Ger- 
man Reichstag. He and Beresford Hope were brother 
Goths, so that Cologne Cathedral there, and Sir Gil- 
bert Scott's buildings here, were the themes of a cor- 
respondence into which, however, Disraeli intruded 
himself very much as the Devil himself was reported 
to have done in the matter of the designs for the 
towers of Cologne. These letters, dated from Bedge- 
bury Park, from the House itself, or from his town 
residence at the east end of Connaught Place (no 
house, one thinks, for a disciple of Pugin, who said 
that a man could not pray in an ill-designed church), 
yield extracts which are worth quotation as a sort of 
mutineer's log-book. After the change from a Con- 
servative to a Liberal Government in 1859, Beresford 
Hope rejoices: 

"The Liberals being in power with only the nar- 
rowest majority, will strive to keep their places by 
gratifying their opponents; i.e., they will govern in a 
Conservative sense for fear the Conservatives should 
be strong enough to turn them out if they took the 
Radical line. Per contra, if the Conservatives were 
in now with that reckless, unprincipled adventurer 
Disraeli at their head, they would not unlikely try to 
keep themselves in by bidding for the support of the 
Radicals and detaching them from the Whigs and 
moderate Liberals. This has of old been Disraeli's 
most dangerous and pernicious game. Accordingly, 
every one believes that if the present Government 
brings in a Reform Bill next session, it will be a very 

447 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

moderate one, and that, if Parliamentary Reforni is 
inevitable, it may be settled off by the present Gov- 
ernment, who are the natural party to do so as the 
representatives of. those who passed the last Reform 
Bill, and so an end be made of the question." 

In April, 1860, Hope seems to give Disraeli the 
discredit (as he thinks it) of even any possible Liberal 
Reform Bill: "What I said to you in my last letter 
about the general Conservatism of public feeling at 
present is amply shown by the general contempt and 
dislike which is manifested on all sides, even amongst 
advanced Liberals, for Lord John Russell's vulgar and 
leveling Reform Bill. But unluckily, thanks to Dis- 
raeli's crooked policy, all men are so committed that 
after all it may be necessary to pass the measure, 
though I trust not without ameliorations such as in the 
Houses of Parliament may be made in Committee 
either of the Commons or the Lords." 

The question of Prince Albert's taste is a delicate 
one. But, where public expression of opinion was 
given sparingly, the frank private judgment of Mr. 
Beresford Hope is all the better worth having. Yet 
even into this bounces the King's head — Disraeli is 
at the bottom of the mischief. He writes in the June 
of 1863: 

"Gothic art had a victory in Scott having been 
selected to build the Albert Memorial, which will, in 
his hands, assume the form of a kind of baldaccMno 
covering the statue from which a lofty fleche will 
spring. ... It was poor Prince Albert's misfor- 
tune to get into the hands of an indescribable entourage 

448 



BERESFORD HOPE 

en fuit d'art. He knew a great deal of facts; but he 
had very little taste, and yet tried to do things him- 
self (he was always averse from employing a regular 
architect, and preferred inferior people, who licked 
his own notions into practical shape). That clique 
found this out, flattered him continuously, and so es- 
tablished an art bureaucracy, which was becoming 
even more oppressive after his death than before, be- 
cause they had got the ear of the Queen (who has no 
knowledge of such things), and persuaded her that 
every job of their own was 'the lamented Prince's 
wish.' The nation was sick of, and indignant with, this 
clique and their bureaucracy, and they showed their 
feeling by rising in a perfect insurrection in the House 
of Commons against the leaders of hoth sides (for Dis- 
raeli was playing courtier and assisting the Govern- 
ment). There was so exciting a scene that night as 
was never seen in the House" — the night when Par- 
liament refused to buy the Exhibition building of 
1862. 

The success of Lord Palmerston at the elections 
of 1866, Hope attributes, not to a national democratic 
tendency, but to the fact that "the people do not gen- 
erally trust the wisdom or discretion of Lord Derby 
and Mr. Disraeli (especially the latter) to lead the 
Conservative Party." The way to a leadership more 
agreeable to Mr. Beresford Hope begins, however, to 
open. "By the death of his eldest, brother, my wife's 
brother. Lord Kobert Cecil has become Lord Cran- 
borne, and heir to their father, the Marquis of Salis- 
bury. This change of position from younger to eldest 
30 449 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

son will, I trust, improve his prospects as one of our 
most rising Conservative statesmen." A year later, 
Mr. Gladstone (whose rejection at Oxford a previous 
letter described as a "mistake") is rather given up as 
a political bad job. "I mourn over Gladstone, for 
whom I have the greatest personal regard, but appar- 
ently he has run wild." A little later Gladstone is 
again alluded to, now as "a man of infinite probity 
and genius but doctrinaire and enthusiastic — an un- 
usual combination of character, but existing in him." 
As a set-off, he can chronicle that "Lord Cranborne 
has gained great credit as Indian Minister." In the 
May of 1867, Beresford Hope refers triumphantly to 
"the magnificent series of designs (eleven in number 
and all Gothic) sent in for the new Law Courts," add- 
ing, "the best of these is undoubtedly that of Burges." 
But when the lover of architecture possessed his soul 
in peace, it was otherwise with the politician. The 
Eeform Bill of 1867 was before the House, and Beres- 
ford Hope sees enemies on all sides, what with "the 
rash, romantic enthusiasm and vanity of Gladstone 
on the one side, and the serpent-like cunning of Dis- 
raeli on the other": 

"Gladstone's bill last year was thrown out because 
it was thought to be too democratic. Now the Con- 
servatives bring forward another measure which is 
infinitely more democratic. My brother-in-law gave 
up the Secretaryship of State for India rather than 
prostitute his convictions to the retention of office." 

A letter from Mr. Beresford Hope to Dr. Reich- 

450 



BERESFORD HOPE 

ensperger dated Christmas, 1867, does not deal much 
with politics, for during a short session "the oppor- 
tune illness of Mrs. Disraeli saved the leader from 
any embarrassing cross-questioning." Elected mem- 
ber for the University of Cambridge, Mr. Hope writes 
in March, 1868: 

"Mr. Disraeli was not much pleased at my success, 
but he would not openly oppose me, though his sym- 
pathies and secret influence went with Mr. Cleasby 
who was a partisan follower of his, and not (as I am) 
an independent Conservative. . . . 

"No one can tell," he writes in August that year, 
"what will be the result of the General Election, 
though I believe and fear it will give a very large 
majority to the Liberals. After Mr. Disraeli's deser- 
tion of all the traditionary principles of Conserva- 
tism, it is impossible for a party to work together 
merely for the purpose of keeping in power a Ministry 
which has abandoned the doctrines for the sake of 
which it pretended to have accepted office." 

In September, 1876, we have the customary smack 
of politics again: 

"You will have heard that the country is in a state 
of excitement on the Eastern Question, but I am sure 
the policy of the Government will approve itself to 
sensible after-thoughts, although undoubtedly the 
speeches of Mr. Disraeli were far from wise or dig- 
nified. He has not left the House of Commons a day 
too soon, for all through last session he was visibly 
too old and feeble to carry on effectually the office (so 

451 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

laborious both morally and physically) of Leader of 
the House of Commons." 

In March, 1877, ''Lord Beaconsfleld is intolerable," 
about the Turks; and "Gladstone's vehemence against 
them is unpractical and vague, and, therefore, in a 
politician a great blunder"; but "happily through it 
all the conduct of my brother-in-law has been such as 
to raise him more and more in the eyes of all patriotic 
and reasonable persons." In April, 1878, he says: 
"The general conviction is that the hopes of peace are 
increased by the firm position and clear language 
which Salisbury has taken up, and his utterances in 
his recent circular. That paper has excited great 
attention, and all but universal admiration. He wrote 
it on the very day upon which he accepted office, 
currente calamo, and without even the assistance of a 
secretary, beginning it at 10.30 in the evening and 
finishing it about 4 a.m. . . . Derby was an ex- 
cellent, most valorous, and able man; but he had not 
the elan or the distinctive knowledge of Continental 
affairs necessary for the ofl&ce. In the meanwhile, the 
Administration is very popular and the Liberals are 
split up into factions and discredited." 

Then in the memorable August of that year (1878): 
"My thoughts have much turned to Berlin lately while 
my brother-in-law was there. The general enthusiasm 
which has met Mm and Lord Beaconsfleld^' (one notes 
the family order of precedence) "since their return is 
a most remarkable feature, and a good augury for the 
longer continuance in power of the Conservatives — 
or Tories, as our good old name is. It has been noted 

452 



BERESFORD HOPE 

that theirs was the first instance that the Corpora- 
tion of London had ever given its freedom by a unani- 
mous vote for political services — political as con- 
trasted with military. But what are we to say to the 
lost reputations? Gladstone, once so powerful and 
now so thoroughly low on one side, in spite of his in- 
exhaustible activity and splendid eloquence! Lord 
Derby, too, has thoroughly collapsed since his cow- 
ardice drove him from oflflce, and since the scandal of 
his real and of his pretended (I am sorry to say) rev- 
elations of Cabinet secrets. It is charitable and, I 
trust, correct to suppose some freak of the intellect 
which has made him believe those extravagant as- 
sertions." 

With Disraeli's death, Beresford Hope did not, I 
note, find Parliament a paradise wholly cleared of 
serpents. Gladstone's "mismanagement is past be- 
lief" in 1882, and in the Home Rule proposals of 1880 
"plays an inconceivable and disgraceful part." Lord 
Salisbury, on the other hand, has delivered 'a very 
able and statesmanlike speech, crushing in its calm 
severity." We get very near home in the last letter 
I shall quote, when yet another possible leader of the 
party, not a Cecil, came in view. That letter is dated 
from Hatfield House, Hatfield, Herts, January 5, 1887: 

"Lord Randolph Churchill has been behaving like 
a gamin and not like a statesman; but with Mr. 
Goschen's adherence to the Government the loss is 
more than made good, for there is no public man more 
respected and trusted than Goschen, Lord Salisbury 
bears his sorrows and anxieties very well, and, in fact, 

453 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

Lord Randolph Churchill's departure, instead of be- 
ing a loss, is a great gain to the stability of the 
Administration." 

In the House of Commons to-day are Mr. Coningsby 
Disraeli and Mr. Winston Churchill, whose last words 
are yet to be spoken. But how hint at a righteous po- 
litical vendetta where Disraeli is concerned, who never 
answered grudge by grudge? Before me lie three 
of his letters to Beresford Hope, each one of them 
conferring a favor which Beresford Hope in every in- 
stance consented to receive from those "unprincipled" 
—those generous — hands. Beresford Hope is no 
more; but the memory of Disraeli's magnanimity 
remains. Witness the following letters: 

To Alexander John Beresford Hope, M.P. 

"10 Downing Street, Whitehall, 
"March 19th, 1879. 

"Dear Mr. Hope: I have the pleasure to inform 
you that, this afternoon, on my proposal, you were 
elected a Trustee of the British Museum. 

"Yours faithfully, 

"Beaconsfield." 

To Alexander J. Beresford Hope, 31. P. 

(Private.) "10 Downing Street, Whitehall, 

"June 2Srd, 1879. 

"Sir: Her Majesty being about to issue a Royal 
Commission to inquire into the condition of the sev- 
eral cathedral churches in England and Wales and 
the Cathedral Church of Christ Church in. the Uni- 
versity of Oxford, and into the duties of the members 
and ministers thereof and other matters connected 

454 




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MINISTER AND CARDINAL 

therewith, and whether any further legislation with re- 
spect to the same is expedient, and, especially, whether 
further powers should be granted for revising, from 
time to time, the statutes of the several capitular 
bodies, and, if so, by what authority and in what man- 
ner such powers should be exercised; I should be glad 
if you would permit me to submit your name to the 
Queen for appointment as a member of the Com- 
mission. 

"I have the honor to be, sir, yours faithfully, 

"Beaconsfibld." 

To Alexander J. Beresford Hope, Esq. 

"10 Downing Street, Whitehall, 
''April 19th, 1880. 

"Dear Beresford Hope: It is with much pleas- 
ure that I have to acquaint you of her Majesty's 
gracious commands that you should attend at Wind- 
sor to-morrow to be sworn a member of her Majesty's 
Most Honorable Privy Council. 

"Sincerely yours, 

"Beagonsfield." 

To Cardinal Manning. 

"GROSVENOR GtATE, 

"April 26th, 1867. 

"My dear Lord: I am honored and gratified by 
the receipt of your Grace's Pastoral, which I shall 
Minister and read, especially on the subject you men- 
Cardinal, tion, of Fenianism, with still greater in- 
terest, since I have had the pleasure of becoming ac- 
quainted with the writer. 

"Believe me, with great consideration, your faith- 
ful servant, 

"B. Disraeli." 

455 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

The letter bears, but does not exhaust, its interest 
on its surface. It was the first interchange of written 
courtesies between two inflexible men, who had lately 
met one another, partly as antagonists, for Manning 
was still politically, though not religiously and not 
temperamentally, a Gladstonian: the Irish Church 
Disestablishment Resolutions were to defeat Disraeli 
and to exhilarate Manning in the following year. For 
the present Disraeli was Chancellor of the Exchequer, 
and had already in his head the plan of a novel which, 
in "out of office" hours of the next two years, he got 
seriously to work upon and published in 1870 as 
Lothair. In that book, be it noted, Fenianism is 
treated with Manning's seriousness; the power of 
secret societies is recognized; and Manning himself is 
introduced, not very recognizably in any but outward 
features, as Cardinal Grandison: "About the middle 
height, his stature seemed magnified by the attenua- 
tion of his form. It seemed that the soul never had 
so frail and fragile a tenement. His countenance was 
naturally of an extreme pallor, though at this moment 
slightly flushed. His cheeks were hollow, and his 
gray eyes seemed sunk into his clear and noble brow, 
but they flashed with irresistible penetration." You 
get the penetration without the flashing eye in Dis- 
raeli, whose description, made on a slight acquaint- 
ance, was exact even to the subtlety of Manning's 
height erecting itself above his mere inches, a symbol 
of his own soaring of spirit above all matter. 



456 



MINISTER AND CARDINAL 

"2 Whitehall Gardens, S.W., 
''April 9th, 1877. 

"Dear Lord Cardinal: It was most courteous 
and considerate in you sending to me an authentic 
copy of the allocution of his Holiness, which I shall 
read with interest and attention. 

"Believe me, very faithfully yours, 

"Beaconsfield." 

Ten years had passed since Cardinal Manning sent 
one of his own pastorals to the Chancellor of the Ex- 
chequer; now he sent a Pontiff's encyclical to the 
Prime Minister. "Much had happened" in the in- 
terval. Lothair had appeared, with a personal sketch, 
already quoted, that surely could not be displeasing 
to the Cardinal; but that ascetic frame had been per- 
versely made the abode of the conventional ecclesias- 
tic's spirit — the zeal which compasses drawing-rooms 
and dinner-tables for a proselyte; the caution that 
degenerates into cunning. But Vaticanism too had 
been sent forth from the other tent, and all those 
other pamphlets which Mr. Forster ingenuously 
wished his leader would not write; and under this 
assault and battery the Radical Cardinal, who wore 
the red and was red at heart, took cover in the Con- 
servative ranks. 

(Private.) "10 Downing Street, Whitehall, 

"January SOth, 1879. 

"My dear Lord Cardinal: I will take care of 
Lady Hackett's case. It shall be well considered. 

"I regret very much your going away, for I fear 
your visit may be protracted. I, literally, can not 

457 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

leave my house in this savage weather; otherwise, I 
should attempt to call on your Eminence. 

"I came here, a fortnight ago, in a snow-storm, and 
I have never since quitted this roof. But I have not 
been idle, for I have held five Cabinets in a week, a 
feat unprecedented in the annals of Downing Street. 
Sir Robert Peel once held four, but they were not so 
tranquil as these later ones. 

"Your travel is a great venture in this severe sea- 
son. I earnestly hope that Rome will welcome you, 
uninjured by the effort. 

"Ever, my dear Lord Cardinal, sincerely yours, 

"Beaconsfield." 

As a sign of the growing friendliness between the 
Minister and the Cardinal, and also as an evidence of 
the reverting of the Minister's mind to the days of 
that predecessor whose greatness he had brought low, 
the letter is memorable. There was no other romance 
in the letter, though it opens with the name of a lady 
and is addressed to one who had credited Cardinal 
Grandison with surprising spiritual conquests of the 
sex: "The Cardinal was an entire believer in female 
influence, and a considerable believer in his influence 
over females; and he had good cause for his convic- 
tions. The catalogue of his proselytes was numerous 
and distinguished. He had not only converted a 
duchess and several countesses, but he had gathered 
into his fold a real Mary Magdalen." In the height 
of her beauty and her fame "she had suddenly thrown 
up her golden whip and jingling reins, and cast her- 
self at the feet of the Cardinal." This passage offend- 
ed the taste of the Cardinal, and the time is not yet, 

458 



MINISTER AND CARDINAL 

even now, when it can be cited as an evidence of the 
precision of contemporary fact turned by Disraeli to 
the purposes of fiction. 

"10 Downing Street, 
"July nth, 1879. 

"My dear Lord Cardinal: I send you the 
promised precis, which will, I hope, assist your Em- 
inence in your communication with the Propaganda, 
and show that her Majesty's Government is not liable 
to the charges brought against them, 

"Ever faithfully yours, 

"Beaconsfield." 

The precis, referring to a delicate matter of ec- 
clesiastical diplomacy, had been promised in one of 
those personal interviews which Lord Beaconsfield 
put to good purpose in Endymion. 

"Fierce with Faction even among the most responsible^ 

"HuGHENDEN Manor, 

'■'Becemher ZUt, 1879. 

"My dear Lord Cardinal: Your kind wishes to 
me for the New Year touch me much, and I recipro- 
cate them with a perfect cordiality. In the dark and 
disturbing days on which we have fallen, so fierce with 
faction even among the most responsible, the voice of 
patriotism from one so eminent as yourself will ani- 
mate the faltering and add courage even to the brave. 
"Believe me, with deep regard, yours, 

"Beaconsfield." 

This last letter, written during "the dark and dis- 
turbing days" which preceded that expulsion of Lord 
Beaconsfield from ofiicial life which his death a year 
later made final, shows the establishment of those 

459 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

cordial relations between the two men of which 
further evidence was to be given and received on the 
publication of Endymion: 

"They were speaking of Nigel Penruddock, whose 
movements had been a matter of much mystery dur- 
ing the last two years. Rumors of his having been 
received into the Roman Church had been rife; some- 
times flatly, and in time faintly, contradicted. Now 
the fact seemed admitted, and it would appear that 
he was about to return to England, not only as a 
Roman Catholic, but as a distinguished priest of the 
Church; and, it was said, even the representative of 
the Papacy. Nigel was changed. Instead of that 
anxious and moody look which formerly marred the 
refined beauty of his countenance, his glance was 
calm and yet radiant He was thinner, it might al- 
most be said emaciated, which seemed to add height 
to his tall figure. . . . All he spoke of was the 
magnitude of his task, the immense but inspiring 
labors which awaited him, and his deep sense of his 
responsibility. Nothing but the divine principle of 
the Church could sustain him. Instead of avoiding 
society, as was his wont in old days, the Archbishop 
sought it. And there was nothing exclusive in his 
social habits; all classes and all creeds and all condi- 
tions of men were alike interesting to him; they were 
part of the community, with all whose pursuits, and 
passions, and interests, and occupations he seemed 
to sympathize; but respecting which he had only one 
object^to bring them back once more to that im- 
perial fold from which, in an hour of darkness and 

460 



MINISTER AND CARDINAL 

distraction, they had miserably wandered. The con- 
version of England was deeply engraven on the heart 
of Penruddock; it was his constant purpose and his 
daily and nightly prayer. So the Archbishop was 
seen everywhere, even at fashionable assemblies. He 
was a frequent guest at banquets, which he never 
tasted, for he was a smiling ascetic; and though he 
seemed to be preaching or celebrating Mass in every 
part of the metropolis, organizing schools, establish- 
ing convents, and building cathedrals, he could find 
time to move resolutions at middle-class meetings, 
attend learned associations, and even send a paper to 
the Royal Society." 

To the nice discrimination of outward form, in the 
case of Cardinal Grandison, was now added, in the 
case of Archbishop Penruddock, a tribute, touched 
almost tenderly, to his inward convictions, his recti- 
tude of soul as well as of body, his missionary aims. 
The Cardinal knew the difference between this por- 
trait and that in Lothair; and, so far as he allowed 
himself to dwell on it, did so with gratification. "It 
is quite another story," was his admission, made to 
me with evident pleasure. 

To Lady Dorothy Nevill (after the death of the Viscountess 
Beaconsfield). 

"HuGHENDEN Manor, 

"January Bist, 1873. 

"My dear Dorothy: I was grateful to you for 
your sympathy in my great affliction — the supreme 
sorrow of my life. 

"You knew her well; she was much attached to 

461 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

you, and never thought or spoke of you but with kind- 
ness and pleasure. 

"Throughout more than a moiety of my existence 
"A Broken she was my inseparable and ever interest- 
Spirit." ing companion. I can not, in any degree, 
subdue the anguish of my heart. 

"I leave this, now my only home, on Monday next 
for the scene of my old labors. I have made an at- 
tempt to disentangle myself from them, but have 
failed. I feel quite incapable of the duties, but my 
friends will be indulgent to a broken spirit, and my 
successor will in time appear. 

"Adieu! dear Dorothy, and believe me 

"Ever yours, D." 

This dear friend was a daughter of the third Earl 
of Orf ord, and the author of a history of the Walpoles. 
Lady Dorothy was a near neighbor of Disraeli's dur- 
ing the happiest years of his life, when he occupied 
the Grosvenor Gate house, alienated from him by 
Lady Beaconsfleld's death — hence the allusion to 
Hughenden as his "only home." Miss Meresia Nevill, 
Lady Dorothy's daughter, has among her childhood's 
memories those of the statesman who took her upon 
his knee, little dreaming that he was rocking there 
the future ruling lady of those Leagues of Primroses 
which were to rise from his ashes. 

To Robert, afterivard Earl of Lytton. 

"2 Whitehall GtArdens, S.W., 
''November 2Brd, 1875. 

"My dear Lytton: Lord Northbrook has resigned 
the Viceroyalty of India, for purely domestic reasons, 
and will return to England in the spring. 

462 



THE LYTTON VICEROYALTY OF INDIA 

"If you be willing, I will submit your name to the 
Queen as his successor. The critical state of affairs 
The Lytton ^^ Central Asia demands a statesman, 
Viceroyaity and I believe if you will accept this high 
of India. post you will have an opportunity, not 

only of serving your country, but of obtaining an en- 
during fame. 

"Yours sincerely, 

"B. Disraeli." 

The sequel of this brave offer may be found in 
The History of Lord Lytton'' s Indian Administration, 1876 
to 1880, by Lady Betty Balfour (Longmans). The 
writing of it must have gratified at once Disraeli the 
Imperialist and Disraeli the man; the one with his 
dreams of Empire, the other with memories of the 
father of the Viceroy-Elect — his own first great 
friend. "The East is a career," he had said in Tancred; 
and, even in moments of depression when he could 
write, as he did to Lord Malmesbury: "These 
wretched Colonies will all be independent, too, in a 
few years, and are a millstone round our neck," India 
was outside his moody vision. 

To the Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone, M.P. 

{August, 1879.] 

"Lord Beaconsfield presents his compliments to 
Mr. Gladstone, and he has the honor to acknowledge 
^, ^ , the receipt of his letter referring to some 

Gladstone. ^ '=' 

remarks made by Lord Beaconsfield last 
night in the House of Lords, and requesting to be 
supplied Vith a list of offensive epithets applied not 
merely to Lord Beaconsfield's measures, but to his 

463 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

personal character, and with a note of the times and 
places at which they were used.' 

"As this would require a search over a period of 
seven years and a half, during which Mr. Gladstone, 
to use his own expression at Oxford, has been counter- 
working 'by day and night, week by week, and month 
by month,' the purposes of Lord Beaconsfleld, his lord- 
ship, who is at this moment much pressed with affairs, 
is obliged to request those gentlemen who are kind 
enough to assist him in the conduct of public business 
to undertake the necessary researches, which proba- 
bly may require some little time; but that Lord Bea- 
consfleld, by such delay in replying to Mr. Gladstone, 
may not appear wanting in becoming courtesy, he 
must observe with reference to the Oxford speech 
referred to in the House of Lords, which was one long 
invective against the Government, that Mr. Gladstone 
then remarked 'that when he spoke of the Govern- 
ment he meant Lord Beaconsfleld, who was alone re- 
sponsible, and by whom the great name of England 
had been degraded and debased.' 

"In the same spirit a few days back, at South- 
wark, Lord Beaconsfleld was charged with 'an act 
of duplicity of which every Englishman should be 
ashamed; an act of duplicity which has not been sur- 
passed,' and, Mr. Gladstone believed, 'has been rarely 
equaled in the history of nations.' Such an act must 
be expected, however, from a Minister who, according 
to Mr. Gladstone, had 'sold the Greeks.' 

"With regard to the epithet 'devilish' which Lord 
Beaconsfleld used in the House of Lords, he is in- 
formed that it was not Mr. Gladstone at Hawarden 
who compared Lord Beaconsfleld to Mephistopheles, 
but only one of Mr. Gladstone's friends kindly inquir- 
ing of Mr. Gladstone how they were 'to get rid of this 
Mephistopheles,' and as Mr. Gladstone proceeded to 

464 



GLADSTONE 

explain the mode — probably the Birmingham caucus 
— Lord Beaconsfield may perhaps be excused for as- 
suming that Mr. Gladstone sanctioned the propriety 
of the scarcely complimentary appellation." 

An exchange of letters between the two leaders 
was of the rarest occurrence; and in all cases Mr. 
Gladstone's good faith, but also his obliquity, seems 
to be indicated. The habit of identifying himself with 
the Deity and his opponent with the Devil had been of 
long growth; and now, since habit makes saints un- 
conscious of their sanctity and sinners of their sin, 
he put forth a challenge, unconscious, it would seem, 
of the bearing of the words he had habitually used. 
Red-hot pincers were the Devil-due weapons. The 
personal equation, in matters of controversy, counts 
for much among combatants; and Gladstone had, 
from the first, formed a low opinion of Disraeli. There 
are those who say that he joined the Liberal ranks 
because he could not bear association with Disraeli 
in the Tory; and Lord Derby, as we know, made him 
the first offer of the Exchequer, Disraeli putting him- 
self aside purposely, and only accepting what, and 
when, the other had declined. "Lord Beaconsfield," 
said Lord George Hamilton after his leader's death — 
and the words are elucidatory here — "was subject to 
much calumny and much libel. I doubt if any man 
ever lived in this country who was more systemat- 
ically calumniated. It really seemed at one time as 
if there were a conspiracy to misrepresent everything 
he did and to misinterpret everything he said. So, 
little by little, and by dint of constant reiteration, an 
. ^^ 465 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

impression was formed by those who did not know 
Lord Beaconsfield's character, objects, and past 
career, utterly at variance with truth. He was rep- 
resented as a cynical, reckless man, thinking only of 
his aggrandizement, and ready for that purpose on 
any flimsy pretext to involve his country in war. I 
had the honor of the most personal acquaintance with 
the late lord, and I can say this, that I never met a 
kinder man in his private capacity or a more patriotic 
man in his public capacity. But it became a cardinal 
point in the creed of many of our opponents that 
Lord Beaconsfield was the author of all evil, that he 
represented all that was bad in human nature, and 
that his rival represented all that was good." 

Under this galling system of aspersion, the habit 
of silence sometimes became too difficult; and when 
Mr. Gladstone denounced the Anglo-Turkish Conven- 
tion as "insane," Lord Beaconsfield, over the board 
spread in honor of the Berlin conference, labeled him 
"a sophistical rhetorician inebriated by the exuber- 
ance of his own verbosity and gifted with an egotis- 
tical imagination that at all times commanded an 
interminable and inconsistent series of arguments to 
malign his opponents and justify himself." Another 
quotation, this time from a speech made thirty years 
earlier, will illustrate the feeling that, at the end of 
his life, was borne in upon him more urgently than 
ever by the passionate attacks made upon proposals 
which were held criminal because they were his, but 
which history has justified. "Now, gentlemen," he 
said to the electors of Bucks, "I have had some ex- 

466 




^ 


a 


w 


fi 


< 







m 



GLADSTONE 

perience of public life, and during that time I have 
seen a great deal done and more pretended, by what 
are called 'moral' means; and, being naturally of a 
thoughtful temperament, I have been induced to ana- 
lyze what moral means are. I will tell you what I 
have found them to consist of. I have found them 
to consist of three qualities — enormous lying, inex- 
haustible boasting, intense selfishness." The words 
uttered in 1879 seem only a graver version of the 
words uttered in 1850; and they went at last to the 
great rival weighted and pointed with the approba- 
tion of the Sovereign. She did not conceal her cold- 
ness for the man who had, in her opinion, by such 
"moral" means deposed her Favorite Minister. Lord 
Granville, free from any complicity in such methods, 
was put up in the House of Lords to deprecate the 
picture drawn of his colleague. Then it was that Lord 
Beaconsfield repeated his charge against Gladstone 
as the utterer of epithets which were offensive per- 
sonally as well as politically. The rival humbly de- 
manded the where and the when. Lord Beaconsfleld's 
reply, now printed, was supplemented by the series 
of Gladstone extracts breathing passionate moral in- 
dignation against the policy of "that man," whom he 
had emerged from his retirement again and again to 
denounce and finally to defeat. 



467 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

To Francis George Heath, in acknowledgment of his hook 
on '^Peasant Life in the West of England.^'' 

"HuGHENDEN Manor, 
"December 28th, 1880, 

"Dear Sir: I thank you for the new volume. Your 
life is occupied by two subjects which always deeply 
Peasants and interest me — the condition of our peas- 
Trees, antry, and trees. 

"Having had some knowledge of the West of Eng- 
land flve-and-twenty years ago, I am persuaded of the 
general accuracy of your reports, both of their pre- 
vious and their present condition. 

"You will remember, however, that the condition 
of the British peasant has at all times much varied 
in different parts of the country. Those of this dis- 
trict are well-to-do. Their wages have risen 40 per 
cent, in my time, and their habitations are wonder- 
fully improved, 

"Again, the agricultural population of the North 
of England, the hinds of Northumberland and the 
contiguous counties, were always in great advance of 
the southern peasantry, and, with all our improve- 
ments, continue so. 

"With regard to your being informed that in many 
parts of the West of England the peasantry are now 
starving, I should recommend jou to be very strict 
in your investigation before you adopt that statement. 
Where is this? and how, with our present law, could 
this occur? 

"With regard to trees, I passed part of my youth 
in the shade of Burnham Beeches, and have now the 
happiness of living amid my own 'green retreats,' I 
am not surprised that the ancients worshiped trees. 
Lakes and mountains, however glorious for a time, 
weary; sylvan scenery never palls. 

"Yours faithfully, Beaconsfield," 
468 



PEASANTS AND TREES 

Lord Beaconsfield, in his double capacity of author 
and statesman, was a veritable Aunt Sally at whose 
head a multitude of books was discharged. Literary 
people liked him to see what they said; political aspi- 
rants sought to catch his eye; and he was not spared 
theology by divines, nor law-books by lawyers, whose 
merits he had perhaps some official means of recog- 
nizing. Young men, calling him "Master," loved 
above all else that authorship might bring them to 
place in his hands the writings of which he had been 
in some sense the inspirer: sometimes he recognized 
himself at a glance and said, with a smile, that he 
felt, in all ways, like "a receiver of stolen goods." In 
earlier life these tributary volumes went mostly un- 
acknowledged — the effort of writing unnecessary 
notes, especially in hot weather, became to the busy 
Parliament man the fagot above a load. Sometimes 
he met the slighted sender, and was sorry. In 1849, 
at a dinner-party at Lord Brougham's ("our host is a 
host in himself"), was "a young Wellesley, a son of 
Mornington, but as unlike his father as imaginable, 
for he was most interesting, thoughtful, highly cul- 
tivated, and seemed to me a genius" — a find for a 
dinner-party indeed! But all was not to be smiling. 
"He had sent me a French book which he had written, 
and which, remembering his father's boring brochure, 
I had never acknowledged; and I felt a pang." He, 
who often had visited the virtues of fathers on their 
sons, here unjustly visited a father's sin on a son. In 
later life, authors sending volumes were not rewarded 
even by that catchword which is attributed to his 

469 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

"Talk"; a formal note from a secretary was their por- 
tion. It is characteristic that when, in the last lonely 
year of his life at Hughenden, he sent a personal letter 
of acknowledgment, it was to an author who wrote of 
sylvan scenery and of that peasantry which had 
peopled Disraeli's earliest dreams of an England 
socially regenerate. 

The allusion to Burnham Beeches reminds us that 
in the autumn of 1849 Disraeli, having been at Drop- 
more, "could not resist stealing on two short miles 
to Burnham Beeches, which," he tells his sister, "I 
had not seen for so many years, and saw again under 
such different circumstances, being their representa- 
tive.^ They did not disappoint me, which is saying 
much." 

To Lady Blessington. 

"HuGHENDBif Manor, 
"January, 1849. 

"I have taken the liberty of telling Moxon to send 
you a copy of the new edition of the Curiosities of 
In Memoriam : Literature, which I have just published, 
Isaac D'israeii. ^ith a little notice of my father. You 
were always so kind to him, and he entertained such 
a sincere regard for you, that I thought you would 
not dislike to have this copy on your shelves. 

"I found among his papers some verses which you 
sent him on his eightieth birthday, which I mean to 
publish some day, with his correspondence; but the 
labor now is too great for my jaded life. 

"My wife complains very much that I broke my 
promise to her, and did not bring her to pay you a 
visit when we last passed through town; but I was 

' He had been elected M.P. for Bucks two years earlier. 

470 



IN MEMORIAM: ISAAC DISRAELI 

as great a sufferer by that omission as herself. The 
truth is, I am always hurried to death and quite worn 
out, chiefly by statistics, though I hope the great 
California discovery [of gold], by revolutionizing all 
existing data, will finally blow up these impostures 
and their votaries of all parties.^ 

"We have passed the last six weeks in moving from 
Bradenham to this place — a terrible affair, especially 
for the library, though only a few miles. I seem to 
have lived in wagons like a Tartar chief. Would I 
were really one, but this is a life of trial; and para- 
dise, I hope, is a land where there are neither towns 
nor country. 

"Our kindest regards to you all, 

"D." 

This "little notice of my father" was produced at 
a time of great political pressure, on the eve of Dis- 
raeli's succession to the leadership of the Tory Oppo- 
sition. In May, 1848, he wrote to his sister: "Moxon 
has undertaken to see the Curiosities through the 
press. Pray remember to get me all the dates as to 
publications, etc., all details, etc., in case I am ever 
destined to write the Memoir" (his father had died two 
months earlier) "I contemplated." Nine months later 

' After the "Peace with Honor" Treaty at Berlin, the British residents in 
California sent Lord Beaconsfield an address enshrined in a golden casket 
from the Golden Gate. In reply to the deputation who presented it he re- 
ferred to the romance of the incident. " Here," he said, " is a body of Eng- 
lishmen working in the El Dorado, the real El Dorado, they have discovered, 
pursuing fascinating and absorbing labors, who yet, amid all the excitement 
of their unparalleled life, can still reflect upon the fortunes of the much- 
loved country they have quitted for a while." Disraeli, who slipped else- 
where into the common confusion between Frankenstein and his monster, 
here similarly, instead of saying " the land of El Dorado," treats the name 
of the man, El Dorado, as the name of the place. 

471 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

the Memoir was born : "The new edition of the Curiosi- 
ties, the first stone in the monument, will appear di- 
rectly. It is an expensive book, and Moxon looks 
grave. He likes the Memoir, but complains that it is 
too short. I think, however, he is wrong." An ex- 
cellent piece of work it is, the first of its kind, but so 
good as to be scarce improved upon by the biography 
of Lord George Bentinck, to follow in four years. Dis- 
raeli, who boasted that his blood was not inferior to 
that of the Cavendishes, gives a brief history of his 
family and of their sufferings for their faith : 

'^My grandfather, who became an English denizen 
in 1748, was an Italian descendant from one of those 
Hebrew families whom the Inquisition forced to emi- 
grate from the Spanish Peninsula at the end of the 
fifteenth century, and who found a refuge in the more 
tolerant territories of the Venetian Republic. His 
ancestors had dropped their Gothic surname on their 
settlement in the Terra Firma, and, grateful to the 
God of Jacob who had sustained them through un- 
precedented trials and guarded them through un- 
heard-of perils, they asumed the name of D'Israeli, 
a name never borne before, or since, by any other 
family, in order that their race might be forever recog- 
nized. Undisturbed and unmolested, they flourished 
as merchants for more than two centuries under tJie 
protection of the lion of St. Mark, which was but just, 
as the patron saint of the Republic was himself a child 
of Israel. But toward the middle of the eighteenth 
century, the altered circumstances of England, favor- 
able, as it was then supposed, to commerce and re- 

472 



IN MEMORIAM: ISAAC DISRAELI 

ligious liberty, attracted the attention ol" my great- 
grandfather to this iHlaud, and he resolved that the 
youngest of his two sons, Benjamin, the ^son of his 
right hand,' should settle in a country where the 
dynasty seemed at length established through the re- 
cent failure of Prince Charles Edward, and where 
public opinion appeared definitely adverse to iiersecu- 
tion on matters of creed and conscience. The Jewish 
families, who were then settled in England, were few, 
though from their wealth, and other circumstances, 
they were far from unimportant. They were all of 
them Sephardim, that is to say, children of Israel, who 
had never (juitted the shores of the Midland Ocean, 
until Torquemada had driven them from their pleas- 
ant residences and rich estates in Aragon, and An- 
dalusia, and Portugal, to seek greater blessings, even, 
than a clear atmosphere and a glowing sun, airiid the 
marshes of Holland and the fogs of Britain. Most of 
these families, who held themselves aloof from the 
Hebrews of Northern Europe, then only occasionally 
stealing into England, as from an inferior caste, and 
whose synagogue was reserved only for Sephardim, 
are now extinct; while the branch of the great family, 
which, notwithstanding their own sufferings from 
prejudice, they had the hardihood to look down upon, 
have achieved an amount of wealth and considera- 
tion which the Sephardim, even with the patronage 
of Mr. Pelham, never could have contemplated. 
Nevertheless, at the time when my grandfather set- 
tled in England, and when Mr. Pelham, who was very 
favorable to the Jews, was Prime Minister, there 

473 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

might be found, among other Jewish families flourish- 
ing in this country, the Villa Reals, who brought 
wealth to these shores almost as great as their name, 
though that is the second in Portugal, and who have 
twice allied themselves with the English aristocracy, 
the Medinas — the Laras, who were our kinsmen — and 
the Mendez da Costas, who, I believe, still exist." 

What Disraeli calls "the disgraceful repeal of 
the bill" — as disgraceful in its way as the revocation 
of the Edict of Nantes — perhaps disappointed the \ 
elder Benjamin and led to that alienation even from 
his own people of which his grandson makes a note: 
"The tendency to alienation was no doubt subse- 
quently encouraged by his marriage, which took place 
in 1765. My grandmother, the beautiful daughter of 
a family who had suffered much from persecution, 
had imbibed that dislike for her race which the vain 
are too apt to adopt when they find that they are 1 
born to public contempt. The indignant feeling that 
should be reserved for the persecutor, in the mortifi- 
cation of their disturbed sensibility, is too often vis- 
ited on the victim; and the cause of annoyance is 
recognized, not in the ignorant malevolence of the 
powerful, but in the conscientious conviction of the 
innocent sufferer. Seventeen years, however, elapsed 
before my grandfather entered into this union, and 
during that interval he had not been idle. He was 
only eighteen when he commenced his career, and 
when a great responsibility devolved upon him. He 
was not unequal to it. He was a man of ardent char- 
acter; sanguine, courageous, speculative, and fortu- 

474 



IN MEMORIAM: ISAAC DISRAELI 

nate; with a temper which no disappointment could 
disturb, and a brain, amid reverses, full of resource.^ 
He made his fortune in the midway of life, and settled 
near Enfield,^ where he formed an Italian garden, en- 
tertained his friends, played whist with Sir Horace 
Mann, who was his great acquaintance, and who had 
known his brother at Venice as a banker, ate maca- 
roni which was dressed by the Venetian Consul, sang 
canzonettas, and notwithstanding a wife who never 
pardoned him for his name, and a son who disap- 
pointed all his plans, and who to the last hour of his 
life was an enigma to him, lived till he was nearly 
ninety, and then died in 1817, in the full enjoyment of 
prolonged existence.^ My grandfather retired from 
active business on the eve of that great financial 
epoch, to grapple with which his talents were well 
adapted; and when the wars and loans of the Revolu- 
tion were about to create those families of million- 
aires, in which he might probably have enrolled his 
own. That, however, was not our destiny. My grand- 
father had only one child, and nature had disqualified 
him, from his cradle, for the busy pursuits of men." 

A Russian loan was in fact offered for his negotia- 
tion in 1815; he refused it, and it passed to the Roths- 
childs — hence the allusion to "those families of mill- 
ionaires." Benjamin Disraeli the Youngest in early 
life had a brief dream of the political finance of the 

^ He was a partner in a firm of fruit importers and had a hand in the 
founding of the Stock Exchange. 

^ When the house was pulled down, the facade was brought to the South 
Kensington Museum as a fine specimen of early eighteenth-century English 
architecture. 

' Disraeli here considerably antedates the year of his grandfather's death. 

475 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

kind his progenitor had foregone. "In the winter of 
1835," says the writer of an article of astonishing 
Disraeli interest appearing in the Quarterly Review of 
January, 1887, "he was concerned in some mysterious 
financial operation which he considered of great polit- 
ical importance. 'Circumstances,' he wrote to Mr. 
Austen, 'have placed me behind the curtain of financial 
politics.' What the precise nature of this operation 
was we have been unable to ascertain. It was seem- 
ingly connected with the issue of a loan for a foreign 
Power in Holland, as he informed Mr. Austen that he 
was in frequent secret communication with the Sec- 
retary of the Dutch Legation in London, and twice 
went over to The Hague in connection with the affair. 
He was in expectation of making a considerable sum 
of money by it, at a moment when he was in serious 
monetary straits; but it came to nothing, and we 
merely mention the circumstance as it affords curious 
evidence that, in his description of Sidonia in Conings- 
hy, he had himself in view in that great and all-know- 
ing politician and financier, or that in Sidonia he 
sketched a character to which it was his ambition to 
attain. The purchase by him in after-years, when 
Prime Minister, of the Suez Canal shares, affords a 
striking instance of his conception of 'financial poli- 
tics.' " Thus had the houses of D'Israeli and Roths- 
child an association at last. Meanwhile, the story of 
Isaac D'Israeli, no man of mercenary affairs, though 
the careful steward of the family fortune that passed 
through his hands, has to be told by his son: 

"A pale, pensive child, with large dark-brown eyes 

476 



IN MEMORIAM; ISAAC DISRAELI 

and flowing hair, had grown up beneath this roof of 
worldly energy and enjoyment, indicating even in his 
infancy, by the whole carriage of his life, that he was 
of a different order from those among whom he lived. 
Timid, susceptible, lost in reverie, fond of solitude, or 
seeking no better company than a book, the years had 
stolen on, till he had arrived at that mournful period 
of boyhood when eccentricities excite attention and 
command no sympathy. In the chapter on Predispo- 
sition, in the most delightful of his works,^ my father 
has drawn from his own, though his unacknowledged, 
feelings, immortal truths. Then commenced the age 
of domestic criticism. His mother, not incapable of 
deep affections, but so mortified by her social position 
that she lived until eighty without indulging in a 
tender expression, did not recognize in her only off- 
spring a being qualified to control or vanquish his 
impending fate. His existence only served to swell 
the aggregate of many humiliating particulars. It 
was not to her a source of joy, or sympathy, or solace. 
She foresaw for her child only a future of degrada- 
tion. Having a strong clear mind, without any imagi- 
nation, she believed that she beheld an inevitable 
doom. The tart remark and the contemptuous com- 
ment on her part, elicited, on the other, all the irrita- 
bility of the poetic idiosyncrasy. After frantic ebulli- 
tions for which, when the circumstances were ana- 
lyzed by an ordinary mind, there seemed no sufficient 
cause, my grandfather always interfered to soothe 
with good-tempered commonplaces, and promote 

^ Essay on the Literary Character^ vol. i. Chap. V. 

477 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

peace. He was a man who thought that the only way 
to make people happy was to make them a present. 
He took it for granted that a boy in a passion wanted 
a toy or a guinea. At a later date, when my father 
ran away from home, and after some wanderings was 
brought back, having been found lying on a tomb- 
stone in Hackney churchyard, he embraced him and 
gave him a pony. 

"In this state of affairs, being sent to school in 
the neighborhood was a rather agreeable incident. 
The school was kept by a Scotchman, one Morison, a 
good man, and not untinctured with scholarship, and 
it is possible that my father might have reaped some 
advantage from this change; but the school was too 
near home, and his mother, though she tormented his 
existence, was never content if he were out of her 
sight. His delicate health was an excuse for convert- 
ing him, after a short interval, into a day scholar; 
then many days of attendance were omitted; finally, 
the solitary walk home through Mr. Mellish's park 
was dangerous to the sensibilities that too often ex- 
ploded when they encountered on the arrival at the 
domestic hearth a scene which did not harmonize with 
the fairy-land of reverie. The crisis arrived when, 
after months of unusual abstraction and irritability, 
my father produced a poem. For the first time my 
grandfather was seriously alarmed. The loss of one 
of his argosies, uninsured, could not have filled him 
with more blank dismay. His idea of a poet was 
formed from one of the prints of Hogarth hanging in 
his room, where an unfortunate wight in a garret was 

478 




ISAAC DISRAELI, 1796. 

After a portrait by Drummond. 

Engraved in the Monthly Mirror, December, 1796. 



m MEMORIAM: ISAAC DISRAELI 

inditing an ode to riches, while dunned for his milk- 
score. Decisive measures were required to eradicate 
this evil, and to prevent future disgrace: — so, as seems 
the custom when a person is in a scrape, it was re- 
solved that my father should be sent abroad, where 
a new scene and a new language might divert his 
mind from the ignominious pursuit which so fatally 
attracted him. The unhappy poet was consigned like 
a bale of goods to my grandfather's correspondent at 
Amsterdam, who had instructions to place him at 
some collegium of repute in that city. Here were 
passed some years not without profit, though his tutor 
was a great impostor, very neglectful of his pupils, 
and both unable and disinclined to guide them in 
severe studies. This preceptor was a man of letters, 
though a wretched writer, with a good library, and 
a spirit inflamed with all the philosophy of the 
eighteenth century, then (1780-1) about to bring forth 
and bear its long matured fruits. The intelligence 
and disposition of my father attracted his attention, 
and rather interested him. He taught his charge 
little, for he was himself generally occupied in writing 
bad odes, but he gave him free warren in his library, 
and before his pupil was fifteen, he had read the works 
of Voltaire and had dipped into Bayle. Strange that 
the characteristics of a writer so born and brought 
up, should have been so essentially English; not 
merely from his mastery over our language, but from 
his keen and profound sympathy with all that con- 
cerned the literary and political history of our coun- 
try at its most important epoch. 

479 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

"When he was eighteen he returned to England a 
disciple of Rousseau. He had exercised his imagina- 
tion during the voyage in idealizing the interview with 
his mother, which was to be conducted on both sides 
with sublime pathos. His other parent had frequent- 
ly visited him during his absence. He was prepared 
to throw himself on his mother's bosom, to bedew her 
hand with his tears, and to stop her own with his lips; 
but, when he entered, his strange appearance, his 
gaunt figure, his excited manners, his long hair, and 
his unfashionable costume, only filled her with a 
sentiment of tender aversion; she broke into derisive 
laughter, and noticing his intolerable garments, she 
reluctantly lent him her cheek. Whereupon Emile, 
of course, went into heroics, wept, sobbed, and, finally 
shut up in his chamber, composed an impassioned 
epistle. My grandfather, to soothe him, dwelt on the 
united solicitude of his parents for his welfare, and 
broke to him their intention, if it were agreeable to 
him, to place him in the establishment of a great 
merchant of Bordeaux. My father replied that he had 
written a poem of considerable length, which he 
wished to publish, against Commerce, which was the 
corrupter of man. In eight-and-forty hours confusion 
again reigned in this household, and all from a 
want of psychological perception in its master and 
mistress. 

"My father, who had lost the timidity of his child- 
hood, who, by nature, was very impulsive, and indeed 
endowed with a degree of volatility which is only wit- 
nessed in the South of France, and which never de- 

480 



IN MEMORIAM: ISAAC DISRAELI 

serted him to his last hour, was no longer to be 
controlled. His conduct was decisive. He enclosed 
his poem to Dr. Johnson, with an impassioned state- 
ment of his case, complaining, which he ever did, that 
he had never found a counselor or literary friend. 
He left his packet himself at Bolt Court, where he 
was received by Mr. B^ancis Barber, the doctor's well- 
known black servant, and told to call again in a week. 
Be sure that he was very punctual; but the packet 
was returned to him unopened, with a message that 
the illustrious doctor was too ill to read anything. 
The unhappy and obscure aspirant, who received this 
disheartening message, accepted it, in his utter 
despondency, as a mechanical excuse. But, alas! the 
cause w^as too true; and a few weeks after, on that 
bed, beside which the voice of Mr. Burke faltered and 
the tender spirit of Bennett Langton was ever vig- 
ilant, the great soul of Johnson quitted earth. 

"But the spirit of self-confidence, the resolution 
to struggle against his fate, the paramount desire to 
find some sympathizing sage — some guide, philoso- 
pher, and friend — was so strong and rooted in my 
father that I observed a few weeks ago, in a magazine, 
an original letter, written by him about this time to 
Dr. Vicesimus Knox, full of high-flown sentiments, 
reading indeed like a romance of Scudery, and en- 
treating the learned critic to receive him in his family, 
and give him the advantage of his wisdom, his taste, 
and his erudition. 

"With a home that ought to have been happy, sur- 
rounded with more than comfort, with the most good- 
22 481 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

natured father in the world, and an agreeable man, 
and with a mother whose strong intellect, under ordi- 
nary circumstances, might have been of great impor- 
tance to him, my father, though himself of a very sweet 
disposition, was most unhappy. His parents looked 
upon him as moonstruck, while he himself, whatever 
his aspiration, was conscious that he had done 
nothing to justify the eccentricity of his course, or the 
violation of all prudential considerations in which he 
daily indulged. In these perplexities, the usual al- 
ternative was again had recourse to — absence; he 
was sent abroad, to travel in France, which the peace 
then permitted, visit some friends, see Paris, and then 
proceed to Bordeaux if he felt inclined. My father 
traveled in France and then proceeded to Paris, 
where he remained till the eve of great events in that 
capital. This was a visit recollected with satisfac- 
tion. He lived with learned men and moved in vast 
libraries, and returned in the earlier part of 1788, with 
some little knowledge of life, and with a considerable 
quantity of books." 

The way of Isaac D'Israeli soon became plain; Pye, 
the Poet Laureate, visited the paternal house at En- 
field and persuaded a reluctant father to allow his 
son to follow his own bent. The honorable making 
and keeping of that bargain between father and son 
was all-essential to the career of Benjamin Disraeli, 
who profited by his father's position to a degree that 
only he himself realized. His father — one of the first 
members of the Athenseum Club — knew all the lit- 
erary men of the day; he familiarized the public ear 

482 




From the drawing bv D. Maclise, R. A. 



IN MEMORIAM: ISAAC DISRAELI 

with the alien name; and, if he excited the wrath of a 
Bolton Corney by what appeared a too great com- 
placency — if he had on a very few occasions the ill- 
luck to pull out a plum with Jack-Horner-like ad- 
vertisement of his own discovery, there can be no 
question about the excellence of those Curiosities of 
Literature which still arouse the curiosity of the 
reader, instruct him, entertain him, even if they do 
not transport him into Bulwer's tribute to the "style." 
How utterly Disraeli the Younger realized his debt 
is known to all onlookers. The Home Letters are full 
of it. When he has got only so far as Falmouth on 
his journey abroad in 1830, he begins to send back 
messages that must have given Bradenham, and the 
Man of Letters laboriously at work there, a very 
happy half-hour. A Mr, Cornish is met at Falmouth 
who has already an American edition of Vivian Grey; 
"but this is nothing," he adds, racing on to the real 
thing: "He has every one of my father's works, ex- 
cept James and Charles, interleaved and full of MS. 
notes, and very literary ones. He has even the Bowles 
and Byron controversy all bound up with the review, 
and a MS. note to prove that D'Israeli was the author 
of the review from parallel passages from the Quar- 
rels, etc. He literally knows my father's works hy 
heart, and thinks our revered sire the greatest man 
that ever lived. He says that Byron got all his lit- 
erature from Padre, and adduces instances which 
have even escaped us. You never met such an en- 
thusiastic votary. I really wish my father could send 
him a book. Unfortunately he has even the last edi- 

483 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

tion of the Literary Character: he has three or four 
editions of the Curiosities, and among them the first. 
I told him that when I wrote home I should mention 
him." Disraeli adds, with a delightful sensation of 
linking himself with his father: "Really these ardent 
admirers of the united genius of the family should be 
encouraged." From Gibraltar he reports that the 
libraries are stocked with his father's works. At Se- 
ville, Brackenbury, the English Consul (and "the 
father of the six Miss Brackenburys, equally pretty"), 
describes Disraeli the Younger as "the son of the 
greatest author in England"; and the news bounds 
to Bradenham, 

So, too, from Alexandria he reports that "Mr. 
Briggs, the great Egyptian merchant, has written 
from England to say that great attention is to be 
paid me, because I am the son of the celebrated 
author." From Granada the delightful and abundant 
fruit is reported: "I only wish I had my beloved sire 
here over a medley of grape and melon and prickly- 
pear." Spanish cookery takes the traveler's mind 
back to Bradenham; for the olio is italicized as the 
most agreeable of dishes, and "my father would de- 
light in it"; while a recipe is sent for a preparation of 
tomato, "with which I think my father would be 
charmed." At Alexandria an admirable Oriental 
dinner "would have delighted my father — rice, spices, 
pistachio nuts, perfumed rotis, and dazzling confec- 
tionery." He awaits news of his father, whose letters, 
he says, "contribute greatly to my happiness" — hap- 
piness even in lazaretto at Malta. It was during this 

484 



IN MEMORIAM: ISAAC DISRAELI 

journey that Dizzy met Giovanni Battista Faleieri, 
Clay's valet — "such a valet!" "Byron died in his arms 
and his mustachios touch the earth." "Such a valet" 
had, of course, to be secured for Bradenham, whither 
Tita as he was called, went, remaining till Isaac D'ls- 
raeli's death in 1848; and then, at Benjamin's instance, 
got a messengership in the India Office. 

Corfu must have gained a new interest for Isaac 
D'Israeli, for it was thence that his son wrote to him 
not only as "My dearest Father," but also as "My 
dearest Friend." A cOol review of Isaac D'Israeli 
rouses the son: "I saw Lingard's cold-blooded hand 
at work in the Monthly''^: — an attribution which sug- 
gests that the mingled haughtiness and frivolity of 
Isaac D'Israeli's habitual allusions to the Church of 
Rome — so unlike his son's — had nettled the historian, 
himself of a particularly liberal turn of mind. The 
return of health to the traveler is announced from 
Cairo in filial fashion — the father is linked with the 
son in the record of the son's recovery: 

"How I long to be with him, dearest of men, flash- 
ing our quills together and opening their minds, 
'standing together in our chivalry,' which we will do 
now that I have got the use of my brain for the first 
time in my life." 

Meanwhile he gives his father such cooperation as 
praise supplies. A favorite puppy at Bradenham 
dies, and his master writes: 

Max, true descendant of Newfoundland race, 
Where once he sported finds his burial-place. 
Vast limbed, his step resounding as he walked, 
The playful puppy like a lion stalked. 

485 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

Domestic friend, companion of all hours, 
Our vacant terraces and silent bowers 
No more repeat thy name; and by this urn 
Not to love dogs too well we sadly learn. 

These are the best eight lines in a poem of double the 
number; and they are fondled by the absent son: 

"The death of Max/' he writes, "has cut me to the 
heart. The epitaph is charming and worthy of the 
better days of our poetry. Its classical simplicity, its 
highly artificial finish (I mean of style), and fine 
natural burst of feeling at the end are remarkable, 
and what I believe no writer of the day could produce. 
It is worthy of the best things in the Anthology. It 
is like an inscription by Sophocles translated by 
Pope." 

If Isaac D'Israeli's early verses failed to get appre- 
ciation from his father, not so his later verses from 
his son. 

The common courtesies of life were not abrogated 
by the attachment between father and child. The 
younger man always remembers he is a guest, as well 
as an eldest son and heir, at Bradenham. When he 
proposes to bring Bulwer down, he adds: "I am 
anxious that he and my father should be better ac- 
quainted." If he reads a book with pleasure, he 
wishes at once to share it: "My father should read 
Chateaubriand." Then, when he met Beckford, 
though Beckford was full of Contarini Fleming, what 
Benjamin lays stress on is Beckford's praise for 
Isaac's Persian romance, Mejnoim and Leila. Disraeli 
did not use the word "educate" with studied effect 

486 



IN MEMORIAM: ISAAC DISRAELI 

only in the Edinburgh speech and of the Tory party: 
"Strangford is educating his second daughter himself, 
and they read the Curiosities every morning." Lord 
Strangford, another time, is reported as being "^'very 
hot against Corney," whose criticisms had upset for 
the moment the plum-cart of the elder D'Israeli. Good 
points against Corney about Camoens and Cervantes 
are promised "to the governor" — Disraeli was in his 
central thirties when he used the schoolboy phrase. 
A French litterateur, M. le Riou (almost the first per- 
son to discuss "the Oxford Tracts" with Disraeli), is 
labeled for Bradenham as "anxious to know my 
father"; and Sir Eobert Inglis, met at Peel's dinner- 
table, has his character determined by his requesting 
"permission to ask after my father." When blindness 
and other infirmities came to Isaac D'Israeli, the son 
had a constant anxiety. 

"Your letter," he wrote in 1839 to his sister, 
"would have made me very happy had it brought more 
satisfactory tidings of my father. I had persuaded 
myself from your account that the enfeebled vision 
arose merely from bodily health, sedentary habits, 
etc. We are very uneasy and unhappy about him, and 
we would take great care of him if he would come up 
for advice." 

The "we" marks that bond of sympathy and affec- 
tion between Mary Anne Disraeli and the family of 
her husband, which has at Hughenden its recording 
monument of stone. 



487 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 



To the Marchioness of Ely. 

(Confidential.) "Hughbnden Manor, 

" September Uh, 1879. 

"Dearest Friend: I must thank you at once for 
your kind and considerate letter, worthy of your un- 
"I Love the failing friendship, which has often been 
Queen." to me a consolation. I am grieved, and 

greatly, that anything I should say, or do, should be 
displeasing to her Majesty. 

"I love the Queen — perhaps the only person in this 
world left to me that I do love; and therefore you can 
understand how much it worries and disquiets me 
when there is a cloud between us. It is very foolish 
on my part, but my heart, unfortunately, has not 
withered like my frame, and when it is affected, I am 
as harassed as I was fifty years ago. 

"I received the Queen's letter yesterday, and 
wrote to her Majesty last night. I wish to see the 
Queen Dictatress of Europe : many things are prepar- 
ing which for the sake of peace and civilization render 
it most necessary that her Majesty should occupy 
that position. This unhappy African war has much 
interfered with my plans, and therefore some sense 
of annoyance on my part may be understood and per- 
haps pardoned. 

"You are kind to ask after my health, and I am 
glad to give you the most satisfactory bulletin. No 
doubt the extreme regularity of my life tends to that 
happy result, but, like the King of Spain, I have 
sought charm and consolation among the pine forests 
of Arcachon — i.e., in plain prose, I place on my table 
when I retire to rest a vase of the resin of those mag- 
ical trees, and they have relieved me now from all my 
foes: fell asthma and exhausting bronchitis. It is like 

488 








lEanor. 



/ 








489 




^i<--C«C 








490 










491 










Olc, 






492 




iEanor. 






^J'^. 







493 















494 



f 

* 




495 







496 



"I LOVE THE QUEEN" 

the balsam which the dames of chivalry conferred on 
suffering knights — but, happily, you have neither to 

touch nor taste it. 

"Yours affectionately, 

"Beaconsfield." 

Lord Beaconsfleld, when he wrote this letter, did 
not know that Sir Louis Cavagnari and the other 
members of his Mission were lying murdered in the 
British Residency at Cabul. Neither the Queen nor 
Disraeli heard the dire news till two days later. The 
South African war which had disconcerted him was 
thus followed by a complication yet more inimical 
to his plan for making his Sovereign the dictatress 
of Europe — a figure of speech for leading lady of 
Christendom, as, despite all ill-luck, she undoubtedly 
was. The Berlin Congress of a few months earlier 
was still fresh in his mind; the Garter had followed 
and the speech in which the Minister described him- 
self and his colleagues as "English gentlemen hon- 
ored by the favor of their Sovereign" and Gladstone 
as a "sophistical rhetorician inebriated with the ex- 
uberance of his own verbosity and gifted with an ego- 
tistical imagination that can at all times command 
an interminable and inconsistent series of arguments 
to malign an opponent and to glorify himself." No 
doubt this letter, as near a love-letter as circum- 
stances permitted, and only possible, even so, because 
addressed to a third person, was intended for the 
Queen's eye. That, at any rate, was Lady Ely's opin- 
ion. A telegram summoned him to Windsor and the 

little cloud of trouble between the Queen and her 
33 49y 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

Favorite Minister melted away. Such misunder- 
standings of a moment had crossed their paths be- 
fore — to pass as quickly. Disraeli's first conception 
of the Royal Titles Bill, for instance, a little alarmed 
the future Empress of India. She hesitated at the 
introductory hint of Disraeli, who nevertheless was 
generally considered "out of doors" to be merely the 
catspaw of the Court, the "subservient Minister" once 
again. 

Queen Victoria's reputation as a judge of men and 
as a woman of affairs must stand or fall with the 
^, ^ , fame of Disraeli. The alliance was close 

The Queen's 

Favorite and it was long enduring. It was based, 

inis er. ^^ _^^^ Sovereign's part, on no preposses- 

sions. On the contrary, she, more than most, had to 
overcome prejudices against the alien, against the 
trespasser upon the enclosure of British politics, 
against the fiction-writer's appearance upon the stage 
of fact. The Prince Consort's dislike for him was an- 
other bar to his approach to the Queen; and the 
Court's conversion to the Repeal of the Corn Laws, 
together with its adhesion to the popular reverence 
for Peel, produced something approaching a feeling 
of positive dislike for the stripling David who with 
a rude sling of speech brought low the Goliath of the 
Philistines. Little did the Queen imagine in those 
days that Disraeli was to be more to her than Peel: 
more to her than even Melbourne, that very fine 
British gentleman to whom she brought the affection- 
ate homage which the young girl yields to the most 
accomplished man of the world among her senior 

498 



THE QUEEN'S FAVORITE MINISTER 

friends; that he was to rank, not merely as her Prime 
Minister, in the ordinary sense of the term, but as the 
Prime Minister among all the Ministers of her long 
reign. 

If, when she discovered Disraeli, Queen Victoria 
had long said good-by to the last of girlhood's illu- 
sions, he himself brought to the association a romance 
which finds expression at the very end of his life in 
the letter to Lady Ely, already quoted. It had found 
early expression when, as a stranger, he wrote of her 
in his novels. Their careers began together; Dis- 
raeli's in the Commons, hers upon the throne. Lord 
Lyndhurst, the last of the beaux to sit on the wool- 
sack, gave Disraeli, then on the eve of his own entry 
to Parliament, an account of the Queen's first Council 
which is preserved in the familiar passage in Sybil: 

"In a palace in a garden: meet scene for innocence 
and youth and beauty, came the voice that told the 
maiden she must ascend the throne. The Council of 
England is summoned for the first time within her 
bowers. There are assembled the prelates and cap- 
tains and chief men of her realm; the priests of the 
religion that consoles, the heroes of the sword that 
has conquered, the votaries of the craft that has de- 
cided the fate of empires; men gray with thought, and 
fame, and age; who are the stewards of divine mys- 
teries, who have encountered in battle the hosts of 
Europe, who have toiled in secret cabinets, who have 
struggled in the less merciful strife of aspiring sen- 
ates; men, too, some of them, lords of a thousand 
vassals and chief proprietors of provinces, yet not 

499 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

one of them whose heart does not at this moment 
tremble as he awaits the first presence of the maiden 
who must now ascend her throne. A hum of half-sup- 
pressed conversation which would attempt to conceal 
the excitement which some of the greatest of them 
have since acknowledged, fills that brilliant assem- 
blage; that sea of plumes, and glittering stars, and 
gorgeous dresses. Hush! the portals open. She 
comes! The silence is as deep as that of a noontide 
forest. Attended for a moment by her Royal mother 
and the ladies of her Court, who bow and then retire, 
Victoria ascends her throne; a girl, alone, and for the 
first time, amid an assemblage of men. In a sweet 
and thrilling voice, and with a composed mien which 
indicates rather the absorbing sense of august duty 
than an absence of emotion, the Queen announces her 
accession to the throne of her ancestors, and her hum- 
ble hope that divine providence will guard over the 
fulfilment of her lofty trust. The prelates and cap- 
tains and chief men of her realm then advance to the 
throne, and kneeling before her, pledge their troth, 
and take the sacred oath of allegiance and supremacy 
— allegiance to one who rules over the land that the 
great Macedonian could not conquer; and over a con- 
tinent of which even Columbus never dreamed : to the 
Queen of every sea, and of nations in every zone. It 
is not of these that I would speak; but of a nation 
nearer her footstool, which at this moment looks to 
her with anxiety, with affection, perhaps with hope. 
Fair and serene, she has the blood and beauty of the 
Saxon. Will it be her proud destiny at length to 

500 



THE QUEEN'S FAVORITE MINISTER 

bear relief to suffering millions, and with that soft 
hand which might inspire troubadours and guerdon 
knights, break the last links in the chain of Saxon 
thraldom?" 

That passage, which gives Queen Victoria her large 
place, came to her at the time of its publication, dis- 
counted by its setting; for the Chartists were no more 
to her than merely "wanton and worthless men." But 
in later years she reread it, and with emotion. Dis- 
raeli, with his gift of intuitive logic, had seen, per- 
haps more clearly than she did, the significance of a 
woman's reign. Caroline, the mill-hand in ByHl, has 
it in her heart when she says: "It's fine news for a 
summer's day to say we can't understand politics with 
a Queen on the throne!" And when he put "The 
Young Queen and the Old Constitution" into the 
mouth of the Tadpoles and Tapers as an election cry, 
he did not merely show his talent in burlesque, but 
proved also his ability to read and to render the note 
of a nation's masculinity. 

Queen Victoria had the praises of a long line of 
Prime Ministers: and they had hers in full return. 
Readers of her letters know what tributes of grateful 
affection she paid to Melbourne, Peel, Aberdeen, 
Palmerston, Wellington, ' Russell, and Derby while 
they lived and when they were dead. The dislikes 
and distrusts with which she had once regarded, say, 
Palmerston's free hand in foreign policy, were for- 
gotten by her in her memory of general service. But 
her demonstrations — the word is not too emphatic — 
in favor of Lord Beaconsfield were of a different sort. 

501 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

They came from the Queen, and they came perhaps 
from the woman; so that Mr. Sidney Lee does not 
exaggerate when he declares that "no Sovereign in 
the course of English history has given equal proof 
of attachment to a Minister." 

Yet Queen Victoria's earlier distresses about her 
Ministers had been largely of Disraeli's causing. The 
defeat of Peel after Repeal in the summer of 1846 — 
Disraeli's doing more than any other single man's — 
brought her Majesty "a very hard day." She says: 
"I had to part from Sir Robert Peel and Lord Aber- 
deen, who are irreparable losses to us and to the 
country. They were both so much overcome that it 
quite upset me. We have in them two devoted friends. 
We felt so safe with them, and I can not tell you how 
sad I am to lose Aberdeen; you can not think what a 
delightful companion he was. The breaking-up of all 
this intercourse during our journeys is deplorable." 
It is characteristic of Sir Robert Peel that when the 
Queen offered to see him "any day," he drew back, 
thinking that such a display of favor and familiarity 
might provoke hostile criticism. Disraeli's method 
and Peel's were here also at issue; for Disraeli's plea, 
even from his pre-Parliamentary days, had been for 
the open revival of the influence of the first mem- 
ber of the threefold constitutional alliance of King, 
Lords, and Commons. When Lord Melbourne died, 
the Queen recurred to the days of a close and even 
romantic early friendship in terms that are primarily 
retrospective and official: "Truly and sincerely do I 
deplore the loss of one who was a most disinterested 

502 



THE QUEEN'S FAVORITE MINISTER 

friend of mine, and most sincerely attached to me. 
He was indeed, for the first two years and a half of 
my reign, almost the only friend I had, and I used to 
see him constantly — daily." She adds: "I thought 
much and talked much of him all day" — a phrase 
pregnant of limitations. When she heard that her 
last letter to her old friend had been "a great com- 
fort and a great relief to him, and that during the 
last melancholy years of his life we had often been 
the means of cheering him up," she adds: "This is a 
great satisfaction for me to hear," The "we" is in 
evidence. There was the solitary "I" when Lord Bea- 
consfield was lost. The armor that intimate compan- 
ionship offers against the assaults of Time was in 
1881 no longer hers. 

In Disraeli's letters to his sister are hints of his 
attitude to the Queen and to Prince Albert, discover- 
ing him in his familiar capacity of the friendly ob- 
server and common-sense judge of persons much less 
graciously inclined toward himself. Those who re- 
member Queen Victoria only by the later years of her 
reign may well find it difficult to realize the distrust 
and the derision with which she was very openly re- 
garded by large bodies of the people during its earlier 
stages. She was not smart enough for one set; an- 
other lamented her absence of taste in the arts; the 
Prince Consort was tolerated (he was not even that 
by some of the Queen's nearest relations) rather than 
approved; while the freedom of his religious opinions 
alienated the sympathies of the yearly growing multi- 
tude that was taking part in the Catholic revival. His 

503 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

influence over the Queen was openly deplored by High 
Churchmen; nor could pious adherents of the Evan- 
gelical party be pleased. "He is everywhere reported 
to be liberally disposed/' wrote Lord Ashley (after- 
ward "the good" Lord Shaftesbury); "such is the pre- 
liminary humbug to his acceptance with the nation." 
Too much of a cosmopolitan to share these views, Dis- 
raeli did not grudge the Prince the hand of the Queen 
— "remarkably sweet and soft," he reports of it on 
the authority of Lyndhurst, fresh from the first Privy 
Council; the hand he was himself to kiss in the years 
to come; the hand, too, that was to write with emo- 
tion the most poignant of epitaphs for his tomb. 
When the Commons rushed into the House of Lords 
for Victoria's opening of her first Parliament, "the 
Queen looked admirably" is Disraeli's record; and, 
again, at the Coronation: "The Queen looked very 
well, and performed her part with great grace and 
completeness." 

In the February of 1840 Disraeli had his first 
glance at the future Prince Consort: "He is very 
good-looking," in the report. When members of Par- 
liament went with a marriage address to the Royal 
pair at Buckingham Palace, Disraeli repeated the 
compliment: "The Queen looked well; the Prince, on 
her left, very handsome." Twelve years later, after 
an interval in which Disraeli had been ignored by 
the Court, he came, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, 
at close quarters with Prince Albert. Writing on 
June 8, 1852, he says: "On Sunday I was two hours 
with the Prince — a very gracious and interesting 

504 



THE QUEEN'S FAVORITE MINISTER 

audience. He has great abilities and wonderful 
knowledge — I think the best educated man I ever met, 
most completely trained, and not over-educated for his 
intellect, which is energetic and lively" — a discrim- 
inating, as well as friendly, sketch. Eight days later, 
he wrote from Downing Street — from Downing Street 
at last: "The Court is very gracious; I was with the 
Prince Consort again two hours on Sunday last." The 
Court was very gracious out of policy — to help itself; 
it was to end by being very gracious out of its heart, 
against all its prepossessions, and because it could not 
help itself. 

The Tory party. Peel at their head, was in early 
conflict with the young Queen. Hard as she found 
it to part from Peel and Aberdeen in 1846, she had 
found it harder in 1839 to say good-by to Melbourne, 
and to send first for Wellington (who declined the 
task of forming a Tory Government, believing — like 
Mr. Labouchere later — its leader should sit with the 
Commons) and then for Peel. "She observed that she 
had parted with her late Government with great re- 
gret," is Peel's dry report. Then followed the episode 
that goes by the name of the Bedchamber Plot. The 
Queen and Sir Robert do not wholly agree in their 
versions of what passed; but the upshot was that Sir 
Robert refused office because the principal posts of 
the Household were filled by friends of the late Ad- 
ministration, who would, he thought, make an impres- 
sion on the Queen's mind hostile to the successors of 
their sons, nephews, uncles, and brothers. The Queen 
stood firm against "a course which," Sir Robert is 

505 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

told, "she conceives to be contrary to usage and which 
is repugnant to her feelings." After reading a sharp 
criticism in a Tory paper upon her show of temper, 
she said: "The Tories do all in their power to make 
themselves odious to me." Yet not all of them. The 
young member for Shrewsbury, though not yet in a 
position to criticize his leader's attitude publicly, was 
inwardly dissenting from it. Writing, six years later, 
in SyUl, he quotes some selfish Tory place-hunters 
about the folly of Peel's refusal of power, and says: 
"Perhaps it may be allowed to the impartial pen 
that traces the memoirs of our times to agree, though 
for a different reason, with these distinguished fol- 
lowers of Sir Robert Peel. One may be permitted to 
think that, under all circumstances, he should have 
taken ofBice in 1839. His withdrawal seems to have 
been a mistake. In the great heat of Parliamentary 
faction which had prevailed since 1831, the Royal pre- 
rogative, which, unfortunately for the rights and 
liberties and social welfare of the people, had since 
1688 been more or less suppressed, had waned fainter 
and fainter. A youthful princess on the throne, 
whose appearance touched the imagination, and to 
whom her people were generally inclined to ascribe 
something of that decision of character which be- 
comes those born to command, offered a favorable 
opportunity to restore the exercise of that regal au- 
thority, the usurpation of whose functions has en- 
tailed on the people of England so much suffering 
and so much degradation. It was unfortunate that 
one who, if any, should have occupied the proud and 

506 



THE QUEEN'S FAVORITE MINISTER 

national position of the leader of the Tory party, the 
chief of the people and the champion of the throne, 
should have commenced his career as Minister under 
Victoria by an unseemly contrariety to the personal 
wishes of the Queen. The reaction of public opinion, 
disgusted with years of Parliamentary tumult and the 
incoherence of party legislation, the balanced state 
in the kingdom of political parties themselves, the 
personal character of the Sovereign— these were all 
causes which intimated that a movement in favor of 
the prerogative was at hand. The leader of the Tory 
party should have vindicated his natural position, 
and availed himself of the gracious occasion: he 
missed it; and as the occasion was inevitable, the 
Whigs enjoyed its occurrence. And thus England 
witnessed for the first time the portentous anomaly 
of the oligarchical or Venetian party, which had in 
the old days destroyed the free monarchy of England, 
retaining power merely by the favor of the Court." 

Peel, however, was impenitent. Looking back on 
the episode, he confirmed his first judgment: "All 
that has passed since has convinced me that we were 
right in refusing to accept power on the express con- 
dition that the wives, sisters, and daughters of our 
enemies should hold the chief household offices." 
When, in 1840, the question of an annual allowance 
to Prince Albert came before Parliament, the Whig 
Ministers proposed the sum of £50,000, whereas Sir 
Kobert Peel supported the amendment to lessen the 
sum to £30,000, and carried the reduction by a ma- 
jority of 104 votes. "This division," he wrote, "will 

507 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

inform the Queen that she niust not place too much 
reliance on the forbearance of the Conservative 
party." Disraeli voted with Peel; but against the 
grain. 

With the Irish Church Disestablishment resolu- 
tions in 1868 came the decisive change in the attitude 
of the Queen toward her rival Ministers, Gladstone 
and Disraeli. "So long as by the favor of the Queen 
I stand here," was one of the allusions made in Par- 
liament by Disraeli to the sympathy of his Royal mis- 
tress. In vain did Bright denounce Disraeli as guilty 
of treason in thus "parading" the Queen's partiality — 
a partiality men did not yet realize. Again, when the 
title of Empress was conferred upon the Queen by her 
Minister, in consonance with her own convictions and 
with the long-formed opinions of experts, she saw 
him baited day after day with an extravagance of 
prophecy about England's downfall in the East, an 
extravagance which itself was evidence of the down- 
fall of England in the foresight of her captains. 
Again there was talk of the impeachment of Disraeli; 
and the very elect were taken by the popular clamor. 
It was Disraeli against the world; and Time has justi- 
fied Disraeli. That episode was the beginning of the 
end of the Queen's confidence in Gladstone; while, on 
the other hand, her belief in his rival had passed into 
the stage of faith. 

Various versions, ironic and farcical, of the source 
and mainstay of that influence of the Minister over 
his Royal mistress have been hazarded; some vulgar, 
some flippant, some offensive. He shook hands with 

508 



THE QUEEN'S FAVORITE MINISTER 

John Brown; the Highland Journal was entered in 
the Koyal Confession Book as his favorite reading; 
he befooled her with flattery — a woman hardened 
utterly against the flatteries of courtiers. Yet if 
"flattery" is to be the word for "his profound and ad- 
miring regard for women," we accept at the hand of 
Lord Esher, then Mr. R. B. Brett, the otherwise un- 
welcome word. "Disraeli's chivalrous devotion to 
women is abundantly clear from his novels," Mr. Brett 
says; "what wonder, then, that to Disraeli, a romanti- 
cist in statecraft, an idealist in politics, and a Proven- 
9al in sentiment, his chivalrous regard for the sex 
should have taken a deeper complexion when the per- 
sonage was not merely a woman, but a Queen? In 
trifles Disraeli never forgot the sex of the Sovereign. 
In great affairs he never appeared to remember it. 
To this extent the charge of flattery brought against 
him may be true. He approached the Queen with the 
supreme tact of a man of the world, than which no 
form of flattery is more subtle." Disraeli, in short, 
took the Queen as he found her. In trifles, she tells 
us somewhere, she felt and showed herself womanish; 
in serious crises she was calm. In talking with the 
Queen, Disraeli — so he told Mr. Brett — had a simple 
rule: "I never deny; I never contradict; I sometimes 
forget" — a rule, one may say, that clamors for very 
general application among the civilized. 

But it was not by any special show of "tact" — 
nearly as repulsive a thing, if self-conscious, in the 
social world as Faber found self-conscious "edifica- 
tion" to be in the spiritual — that Disraeli obtained 

509 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

and held his sway over the preferences of his Sover- 
eign. He had a saving sense of humor, and he had 
for his foil in this respect, during his later years, a 
rival who had none. The Queen liked to be amused^ 
and Disraeli's flow of shrewd comment on men and 
matters never failed. "No one, it is certain," says 
Lady Ponsonby, "ever amused her so much as he did." 
The Island politician is by common consent a dull 
creation; and the Queen treated him dully. The bored 
person is apt to be inconsiderate, even brutal; so that 
the gouty Minister, afraid to possess his soul, was 
made to stand after dinner till he dropped — and woe 
to him if he trenched on the Royal rug! Mental 
lackeys may very well be treated as physical lack- 
eys. Queen Victoria did not put forth the formula; 
but her practise was such when she permitted to Dis- 
raeli, and to Disraeli alone, "a reckless disregard of 
Court etiquette." Lady Ponsonby illustrates her 
point: 

"He was never in the least shy; he did not trouble 
to insinuate; he said what he meant in terms the most 
surprising, the most unconventional; and the Queen 
thought that she had never in her life seen so amusing 
a person. He gratified her by his bold assumptions 
of her knowledge, she excused his florid adulation on 
the ground that it was 'Oriental,' and she was pleased 
with the audacious way in which he broke through the 
ice that surrounded her. He would ask across the 
dinner-table, 'Madam, did Lord Melbourne ever tell 
your Majesty that you were not to do this or that?' 
and the Queen would take it as the best of jokes. 

510 




WE BESS. MXI) MOKOHEB MEMORY 

or 

JWS MBNOIWI, IS PI/XCBB BY 

Victoria; r i 




Photograph by H. W. Taunt & Co., Oxford. Designed by Richard Belt. 

MEMORIAL IN HUGHENDEN CHURCH. 

Erected to her Favorite Minister by Queen Victoria. 



THE QUEEN'S FAVORITE MINISTER 

Those who were present at dinner when Disraeli sud- 
denly proposed the Queen's health as Empress of In- 
dia, with a little speech as flowery as the oration of a 
maharajah, used to describe the pretty smiling bow, 
half a courtesy, which the Queen made him as he sat 
down. She loved the East, with all its pageantry and 
all its trappings, and she accepted Disraeli as a pic- 
turesque image of it. It is still remembered how 
much more she used to smile in conversation with him 
than she did with any other of her Ministers." 

The Queen did not keep her partiality to herself 
or to her more immediate entourage. The public may 
be said to have been taken into confidence even 
rather defiantly. In 1868, he was consoled for his 
defeat at the polls by the Queen's wish to give him a 
signal mark of her approbation, and Lady Beacons-^ 
field became a Viscountess, His own earldom came 
at a moment of equally critical contest; and when her 
personal presence at the opening of Parliament, or 
even a visit to Hughenden, could serve his interests, 
the trouble was not grudged by his Royal mistress. 
The bunch of roses she sent to Downing Street to 
welcome him on his arrival from the Berlin Confer- 
ence was a pledge, to which the primrose was 
too soon to be a ghostly successor. At the first news 
of his serious illness she sent to offer that bedside 
visit upon which his doctors put their veto, believing 
the strain and emotion of such an interview to be 
beyond his flickering powers. Daily messages were 
supplemented by offers of delicacies, some of which 
he ate, alas! with no sauce of hunger. 

511 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 

Wlien the end came, her own hand wrote the 
official notice for the Court Circular: "The Queen re- 
ceived this morning, with feelings of the deepest sor- 
row, the sad intelligence of the death of the Earl of 
Beaconsfield, in which her Majesty lost a most de- 
voted friend and counselor, and the nation one of its 
most distinguished statesmen." The offer of a public 
funeral in Westminster Abbey, made at once to the 
executors by Mr. Gladstone, was of her instant 
prompting; and a day later, the Court Circular an- 
nounced that Lord Rowton — he whose peerage was 
in a sense a link between the Sovereign and the dead 
Chief — had arrived at Osborne to recount "the touch- 
ing details of the last hours of her Majesty's valued 
friend. Lord Beaconsfield." At the graveside at the 
foot of the green hill at Hughenden were two wreaths, 
distinguishable from all the rest — one of primroses, 
bearing the legend "His favorite flower," in the 
Queen's handwriting; and another, on which she 
wrote: "A mark of true affection, friendship, and 
respect." 

The unfinished picture by Sir John Millais the 
Queen ordered to be placed in the Academy, though 
sending-in day was over; and, had she not disliked it, 
would herself have become its possessor. A little 
later, Victoria made a pilgrimage to the vault at 
Hughenden, which was reopened for her, so that she 
might lay upon the unspeaking coffin with her own 
hand another wreath. At her special request, on that 
occasion the Queen traveled the exact route taken by 
Lord Beaconsfield when last he had passed from 

512 



THE QUEENS FAVORITE MINISTER 

Windsor to his own Manor house; and thence she 
traced to the grave the steps of those who had carried 
his coffin over that descending track. From her own 
privy purse she put up a monument to her Minister in 
his parish church. There at Hughenden, under the 
profile portrait in marble, appear the lines: "To the 
dear and honored memory of Benjamin, Earl of Bea- 
consfield, this memorial is placed by his grateful 
Sovereign and friend, Victoria K.I. 'Kings love him 
that speaketh right.' " 



THE END. 



34 513 



INDEX 



Aberdare, Lord, 131. 

Aberdeen, Lord, 98. 

Ainsworth, 64. 

Albany, 188. 

Albemarle, Earl of, 139. 

Albert, Prince, 448, 449. 

Alderson, Baron, 87. 

Alvanley, Lord, 212, 213. 

Ashley, Lord, 314. 

Austen, Benjamin, 266. 

Austen, Mrs., 24, 175, 176, 182, 

183. 
Austin, Charles, 268. 

Baillie, Henry, 218. 
Balfour, A. J., 154, 179, 390. 
Baring, Sir Thomas, 204, 395. 
Barrington, Lord, 3, 20, 160, 162, 

164, 165, 171. 
Basevi, George, 264, 342. 
Baum, 167. 
Beaconsfield, Lady, 51, 62, 188, 

292, 384. 
Beaconsfield, Lord. See Disraeli, 

Benjamin. 
Beaconsfield, pronunciation of, 113. 
Beckford, William, 27 {note), 

212. 
Bedford, Duke of, 123. 
Bennet, Lord, 142. 
Bennett, Mr., 219. 
Bentinck, Lord George, 30, 152, 

319. 
Berlin Congress, the, 152. 
Bismarck, Prince, 107, 108. 
Blackheath, 4. 

Blackwood, Mrs., 133, 159, 290. 
Blagden, Rev. H., 130. 



Blessington, Lady, 188, 252; let- 
ters to, 256. 

Blount, Sir Edward, 343. 

Blunt, Wilfrid Scawen, v. 

Bradenham, 23, 250. 

Bradford, Lady, 77. 

Bradford, Lord, 20. 

Brett, Hon. Reginald, 154. 

Brewster, Mr., 424. 

Bridgewater, Earl of, 88. 

Bright, John, 341, 355, 357. 

Brougham, Lord, 72. 

Brown's Life of Disraeli, 420. 

Browning, Robert, 150. 

Bruce, Dr., 161. 

Biyce, Mr., 424. 

Buckingham, Duke of, 18. 

Buller, Charles, 225 {note), 248. 

Bulwer, E. L., 13, 18, 36, 41, 89, 
188, 201, 205, 251. See also 
Lytton. 

Bulwer-Lytton, Lady, 150. 

Eurdett, Sir Francis, 37. 

Burke, 109. 

Burney, Admiral, 12. 

Bury, Lord, 139. See also Albe- 
marle. 

Busk, E. J., 9. 

Byron, 125, 126, 177, 381. 

Cadogan, Lord, 20. 
Caillard, Sir Vincent, 264. 
Cairns, Lord, 145, 166. 
Campbell, Lord Chancellor, 272. 
Campbell, Tom, 26. 
Canterbury, Lord, 336. 
Carlingford, Lord, 249. 
Carlvle, Thomas, 437, 440, 442. 



515 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 



Chamberlain, Joseph, 135, 418. 
Chandos, Lord, 37, 132, 302, 303. 
Chesterfield, Lady, 20, 185. 
Childers, Mr., 424. 
Churchill, Lord Randolph, 85, 

453. 
Clay, H. E., 97, 151. 
Clay, James, 96, 97. 
Cochrane, Baillie, 75, 84, 153. See 

also Lamington. 
Cogan's school, 5. 
Colburn, 63. 
Coleridge, 143. 
Collard, Mr., 219. 
Collins, 62. 

Gontarini Fleming, 6, 25. 
Cooper, Thomas, 63, 64, 65. 
Cowper, Henry, 119, 127. 
Cross, 135. 

Cumberland, Duke of, 21. 
Cunningham, Alan, 26. 

D'Arblay, Madame, 12, 26. 

D'Esterre, 212. 

de Fonblanque, E. B., 67. 

de Grey, Lady, 300 ( note ) . 

de Grey, Lord, 300. 

de Montalembert, Mdlle., 29. 

de Murrieta, Madame (Marquesa 
de Santurce), 151. 

D'Orsay, Count, 18, 188, 218, 251, 
255, 263. 

Derby, Lady, 23. 

Derby, Lord, 84, 453. 

Devonshire, Duke of, 140. 

Dilke, Sir C, 26, 138. 

Disraeli, Benjamin: birth, 3; edu- 
cation, 4; conversation, 13; on 
dinners, 17; on smoking, 23; 
his novel Gontarini Fleming, 
25 ; his political aspirations, 29 ; 
his name, 32 ; his maiden speech, 
35 ; his marriage, 50 ; his rac- 
ing experiences, 77 ; his views 
on youth, 79; Chancellor of 
the Exchequer, 86; his first 
acquaintance with Mrs. Brydges 
Willyams, 88; middle age, 89; 
his delicate health, 90; his 



nervousness, 92; Church pat- 
ronage, 99; at the Berlin Con- 
gress, 107 ; the Golden Wreath, 
110; on men and books, 119; 
on servants, 127; on Church 
matters, 128; impressions and 
portraits, 131 ff.; his favorite 
flower, 147; habitations, 148; 
compliments, 149 ; diversions, 
151; his last illness, 160; early 
travels, 175; at Geneva, 176; 
Milan and Venice, 177; Flor- 
ence, 180; ill health, 182; a 
friend in need, 183 ; his sister, 
184; his best friend, 187; his 
connection with the Westmin- 
ster Reform Club, 199; his first 
candidature, 204; his corre- 
spondence with O'Connell, 214; 
his letters to the Tim,es, 223 ; 
his friendship and correspond- 
ence with Lady Blessington, 
252; Carlton Club candidature, 
254; his uncle, George Basevi, 
264; his dislike of lawyers, 266; 
the Queen v. Disraeli, 271; his 
impecuniosity, 291 ; the Peel- 
Disraeli correspondence, 294 ; 
his novel Byhil, 348 ; proof-read- 
ing for Hansard, 390; his 
friendship and correspondence 
with Mrs. Brydges Willyams, 
399 ; his coat of arms, 407 ; 
Church and State, 410; his 
biographers, 416; his views on 
literary rewards, 425, 435; his 
cosmopolitanism, 439; his opin- 
ion on evolution, 440 ; his mag- 
nanimity, 454; on the death of 
his wife, 461 ; his friendship for 
the Queen, 488; and hers for 
him, 498; his humor, 510. 

D'Israeli, Isaac, 186. 

D'Israeli (Mrs.), Mary Anne. See 
Beaconsfield, Lady. 

Disraeli, Ralph, 35, 84, 262. 

Disraeli, Sarah, 4, 114, 184, 185, 
186, 187. 

Downman, Dr., 394, 395. 



516 



INDEX 



Drummond, Henry, 76. 
Dudley, Lady, 20, 150. 
Buncombe, Lady Harriet, 100. 
Duncombe, Dean Augustus, 100. 
Buncombe, T. S., 36, 62, 63. 
Durham, Lord, 37, 212, 238. 

Ecclesiastical appointments, Dis- 
raeli's, 99. 
Eldon, Lord, 134. 
Eliot, Lord, 66. 
Escott, Mr., 424. 
Espmasse, 147. 
Evans, John, 51. 
Evelyn, John, 74, 75. 
Exeter, 393, 396. 

Faber, Frederick, 72, 85. 

Fagan, Louis, 201. 

Fector, 268. 

Ferrand, Bousfield, 355. 

Foggo's life of Disraeli, 420. 

Follett, Sir W., 273 flf. 

Fonblanque, 188. 

Francis, G. H., 248. 

Eraser, Sir William, 14, 121, 122, 

123, 127, 149, 424. 
French, Fitzstephen, 213, 214. 
Froude, J. A., 400. 
Froude's life of Disraeli, 421. 

Gal way, Lord, 152. 
Gibson, Milner, 92. 
Gladstone, W. E., 140, 145, 146, 

147, 152, 426, 449, 450, 
Gloie, the, 222 ff . 
Goderich, Lord, 300. 
Goethe, 27. 
Goldsmid, Baron, 20. 
Gordon, Sir Charles, 98. 
Gore,. Charles, 29. 
Gore House, 15. 
Gore, Mrs., 13, 188, 288. 
Gortschakoff, Prince, 107. 
Goschen, Lord, 453. 
Gower, Lord Ronald, 53, 54, 135, 

340. 
Graham, Sir James, 131, 132, 315, 

383. 



Grammatical errors, 161, 162. 
Granby, Lord, 20. See also Rut- 
land. 
Grant, Sir R., 18. 
Granville, Lord, 20, 47, 157. 
Green, Henry, 9. 
Green, Richard, 9. 
Greenwood, Frederick, 424. 
Gregory, Sir William, 51, 52, 53. 
Greville, 30, 37. 
Grey, Colonel, 117, 237. 
Grey, Lord, 117. 
Gull, Sir William, 342. 
Gurney, Rev. Alfred, 11. 
Gurney, Russell, 10. 

Halifax, Lord, 387. 

Hall, E. P., 32. 

Hamilton, Lord George, xiii. 

Hanover, King of, 68. 

Hansard, 162, 390. 

Harcourt, Sir William, 53, 125, 

130, 137. 
Hare, Julius, 70. 
Harris, J. H., 293, 424. 
Harrison, Frederic, 424. 
Harrington, Lord, 139. See also 

Devonshire, Duke of. 
Hawes, 9. 
Hayward, Abraham, 247, 248, 249, 

250, 308. 
Heaton, Henniker, 69. 
Heine, 27. 

Hitchman's life of Disraeli, 423. 
Hobhouse, Sir John, 242. 
Holme, John, 101. 
Hope, A. J. B., 443, 455. 
Hope, Henry, 74. 
Houghton, Lord, 13 (note), 82. 
Howard, Lady, 125. 
Hume, Joseph, 36, 203, 206, 237, 

238, 386. 

Ingpen, Roger, xiv. 

Jeffrey, 66. 
" Jim' CroAv," 34. 
Jones, Edward, 4. 
Jowett, Dr., 123. 



517 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 



Kebbet's life of Disraeli, 422. 
Keble, 83. 

Ker-Seymer, H. E., 97. 
Kidd, Dr., 160, 171. 

Labouchere, Henry, 207. 

Lamington, Lady, 83, 151, 153. 

Langtry, Mrs., 250. 

Laslett, 293. 

Layard, G. S., 387, 389. 

Layard, Sir Austen, 182. 

Layard, Sir Henry, 406. 

Leeper, Rev. H. H., 414. 

Leighton, Lord, 20. 

Lennox, William, 30. 

Leveson-Gower, Mr., 47. 

Lewis, Mrs. Wyndham, 13, 50. See 

also Beaconsfield, Lady. 
Lincoln, Lord, 28. 
Londonderry, Lord, 285. 
Lonsdale, Lady, 20. 
Lord, Frewen, 424. 
Lothair, 457. 
Louise, Princess, 144. 
Lovegrove, 293. 
Lovett, 62. 
Lygon, Colonel, 49. 
Lyndhurst, Lady, 287, 289. 
Lyndhurst, Lord, 18, 29, 30, 37, 

251, 266, 303, 326. 
Lyttelton, Lord, 69. 
Lytton, Earl of, letter to, 462. 

Macaire, Robert, 22. 

Macaulay, 36. 

MacColl, Canon, 146. 

Macknight's life of Disraeli, 416. 

Maclise, 12. 

Macmurdo, Gilbert, 90. 

Magee, Bishop, 99. 

Mahon, Lady, 185. 

Mahon, Lord, 34. 

Maidstone election, the, 269. 

Malmesbury, Lord, 22, 54. 

Manners, Lord John, 68, 82, 85, 

354, 383, 384, 446. See also 

Rutland. 
Manners-Sutton, H., 19. 



Manning, Cardinal, 118, 141, 144, 

177, 455, 456, 459. 
Mary of Cambridge, Princess, 141. 
Melbourne, Lord, 31. 
Meredith, William, 175, 186. 
Metternich, 114. 
Meynell, S. T., xiv. 
Mill's life of Disraeli, 420. 
Mill, J. S., 358. 
Millais, John, 153. 
Milman, 25. 
Monckton-Milnes. See Houghton, 

Lord. 
Montagu, Lady Mary Wortley, 24. 
Montagu, Lord Robert, 137. 
Moore, 66, 67, 189. 
Morgan, Lady, 247. 
Morley, Lady, 21. 
Morning Post, letter to the, 268 ff. 
Mowbray, Sir John, 53. 
Moxon, 63. 
Mulgrave, Lord, 189. 
Murray, John, 64 (note). 

Nevill, Lady Dorothy, letter to, 

461. 
Newman, Cardinal, 75, 136. 
Northcote, Sir Stafford, 108. 
Northumberland, Duke of, 70. 
Norton, Mrs., 13, 31, 133, 290. 

O'Brien, Smith, 37, 
O'Connell, 36, 205. 
O'Connell, Morgan, 212. 
O'Connor, Feargus, 348. 
O'Connor's life of Disraeli, 418. 
Ormonde, Lord, 178. 
Osborne, Bernal, 51, 205, 397. 
Ossulston, 18. 

Paget, 9. 

Pakington, Sir John, 131. 

Palk, Sir Lawrence, 392, 396, 397. 

Palmerston, Lord, 36, 89, 308. 

Parke, Baron, 86, 87. 

Parker, C. S., 296, 328. 

Parkinton, G. H., 86. 

Patmore, Coventry, 120. 

Peacock, T. L., 307. 



518 



INDEX 



Peel, Lord, 32. 

Peel, Sir Robert, 40, 42, 43, 48, 72, 
83, 84, 95, 132, 204, 285, 506, 
507, 508 ; correspondence with 
Disraeli, 294, 340. 

Pigott, Digby, 101, 102. 

Pigou, Dean, 147. 

Piatt, Baron, 87. 

Pollock, Baron, 87. 

Pollock, Sir F., 273. 

Pope-Hennessy, Sir John, 155. 

Portland, Duke of, 165. 

Potticary's school, 4. 

Power scourt, ,18. 

Quain, Sir R., 160. 

Reform Club, the, 200. 

Robinson, H. C, 16. 

Roebuck, 72, 141. 

Rolfe, 87. 

Rose, Sir Philip, 160. 

Rosslyn, Lord, 144. 

Rothschild, Alfred de, 20. 

Rothschild, Sir Anthony, 20, 21. 

Rowton, Lord, 109, 148, 160, 163, 

164, 165, 171. 
Russell, Lord John, 29, 36, 48, 62 

(note), 117, 242, 306. 
Russell, Lord Odo, 109. 
Rutland, Duchess of, 138, 157, 155. 
Rutland, Duke of, 21, 127. See 

also Manners. 
Ryle, Bishop (of Liverpool), 99, 

102. 

St. Germans, Earl of. See Eliot, 
Lord. 

St. Maur, Lady (Duchess of Som- 
erset), 290. 

Saintsbury, Prof., 82. 

Salisbury, Lord, 94, 95, 390, 415, 
453. 

Sandon, Lord, 103, 105. 

Scott, Montagu, 390. 

Sebright, Lady, 149. 

Selborne, Lord, 340. 

Seymour, Lady (Duchess of Som- 
erset), 133. 

Shaftesbury, Lord, 341. 



Sharpe, Daniel, 9. 

Sharpe, Samuel, 9. 

Sharpe, Sutton, 9. 

Shee, William Archer, 11. 

Sheil, 41. 

Sheridan, Mrs., 159. 

Sichel, Walter, 424. 

Sinclair, Sir George, 381; letters 

to, 382, 385. 
Smith, W. H., 135. 
Smiths, Abel, 21. 
Smythe, George, 51, 65, 68, 69, 70, 

7L 72, 73, 74, 75, 188. See also 

Strangford. 
Solly, Samuel, 9. 
Somerset, Grenville, 49. 
Somerset, Duke of, 159, 396. 
Spencer, Lord, 20. 
Stafford, Augustus, 83. 
Stanhope, Lord. See Mahon, Lord. 
Stanley, Dean, 106. 
Stanley, Lord, 134. See also 

Derby, Lord. 
Stepney, Lady, 189. 
Stewart, Mrs. Duncan, 90, 92. 
Stirling-Maxwell, Sir William, 

249. 
Strangford, Lord, 18, 65, 66, 67, 

68, 69, 188. See also Smythe, G. 
Sutherland, Duke of, 20, 107. 
Swinburne, A. C, 139. 
Sybil, 348, 381. 
Sykes, Christopher, 152. 
Sykes, James, 293 (note), 424. 

Talfourd's Copyright Bill, 48. 
Tauchnitz, Baron, 416. 
Taylor, Colonel, 22. 
Taylor, H. J., 293 (note). 
Tennyson, Lord, 425. 
Thackeray, W. M., 20, 21. 
Thompson, Colonel P., 32. 
Times, letters to the, 223, 225, 236, 

244. 
Towle's life of Disraeli, 422. 
Travers, Benjamin, 9. 
Tremaine, Bertie, 79. 
Turnerelli, Tracy, 110-13. 
Turton, Dr., 393. 



519 



BENJAMIN DISRAELI 



Victoria, Queen, 162, 163, 488, 

489, 497, 498, 499, 501. 
Villiers, Charles, 21, 188. 
Vincent, 87. 
Viney, James, 51, 293. 



Walthamstow, 5. 

Webster, Colonel, 23. 

Webster, Daniel, 289. 

Weller, Rev. James, xiv. 

Wellington, the Duke of, 309, 333. 

Willes, 88. 

Willis, N. P., 15. 



Willyams, Mrs. Brydges, 88, 399, 

402, 403. 
Wilton, Lord, 152. 
Wing, Mrs., 265, 266. 
Wolcot, 393. 
Wood, Sir Charles. See Halifax, 

Lord. 
Wood, Sir Matthew, 200. 
Wycombe, 204. 
Wyndham, Sir William, 232. 

Yate, Mrs., 292. 

Zangwill, Mr., 424. 



(1) 



BD -161 



520 



























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